To Green Angel Tower Volume 2 Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  PART ONE

  Chapter 1 - Tears and Smoke

  Chapter 2 - Ghost Moon

  Chapter 3 - Windows Like Eyes

  Chapter 4 - A Thousand Leaves, A Thousand Shadows

  Chapter 5 - Ffamedance

  Chapter 6 - The Circle Narrows

  Chapter 7 - White Tree, Black Fruit

  Chapter 8 - A Confession

  Chapter 9 - The Third House

  Chapter 10 - A Wound in the World

  Chapter 11 - Heartbeats

  Chapter 12 - Sleepless in Darkness

  Chapter 13 - The Fallen Sun

  Chapter 14 - Empires of Dust

  Chapter 15 - A Meandering of Ink

  Chapter 16 - Roots of the White Tree

  Chapter 17 - An Ember in the Night Sky

  Chapter 18 - The Shadow King

  Chapter 19 - Cunning as Time

  Chapter 20 - Prisoned on the Wheel

  PART TWO

  Chapter 21 - The Frightened Ones

  Chapter 22 - A Sleeping Dragon

  Chapter 23 - The Rose Unmade

  Chapter 24 - The Graylands

  Chapter 25 - Living in Exile

  Chapter 26 - Song of the Red Star

  Chapter 27 - Hammer of Pain

  Chapter 28 - Abandoned Ways

  Chapter 29 - The Hand of the North

  Chapter 30 - Beside the Pool

  Chapter 31 - The False Messenger

  Chapter 32 - The Tower

  Chapter 33 - Hidden from the Stars

  Chapter 34 - Leavetaking

  Afterword

  Appendix

  "GREEN ANGEL TOWER

  has its mysteries, but even more fascinating is the labyrinth of tunnels, hidden passageways, and corridors hidden under the Hayholt.... It’s one of the most striking constructions since Ghormenghast, and a major part of this triumphant conclusion to a hefty trilogy.“ -Locus

  “This sprawling, spellbinding conclusion to the trilogy that began with The Dragonbone Chair weaves together a multitude of intricate strands, building to a suitably apocalyptic confrontation between good and evil.”—Publishers Weekly

  “A gripping adventure ... refreshing and invigorating ... ‘To Green Angel Tower’ is a magnificent ending to a superlative high fantasy trilogy.”—The Herald

  “A thoroughly enjoyable, well-wrought epic fantasy.... The plot, events, and characters are so tightly connected the pages turn miraculously quickly. Every scene is needed and vivid.”

  -SFRA Review

  DAW BOOKS PRESENTS THE FINEST IN IMAGINATIVE FICTION BY

  TAD WILLIAMS

  TAILCHASER’S SONG

  THE WAR OF THE FLOWERS

  SHADOWMARCH

  SHADOWPLAY

  SHADOWRISE*

  MEMORY, SORROW, AND THORN

  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

  *Coming soon from DAW Books

  Copyright © 1993 by Tad Williams.

  DAW Book Collectors No. 948.

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

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious.

  Any resemblance to persons living or dead

  is strictly coincidental.

  eISBN : 978-1-101-14223-3

  First Paperback Printing, July 1994

  19

  DAW TRADEMARK REGISTERED

  U. S. PAT OFF. AND FOREIGN COUNTRIES

  —MARCA REGISTRADA

  HECHO EN U.S.A.

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  This series is dedicated to my mother,

  Barbara Jean Evans,

  who taught me to search for other worlds,

  and to share the things I find in them.

  This final volume, To Green Angel Tower,

  in itself a little world of heartbreak and joy,

  I dedicate to Nancy Deming-Williams,

  with much, much love.

  Author’s Note

  And death shall have no dominion.

  Dead men naked they shall be one .

  With the man in the wind and the west moon;

  When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones

  gone

  They shall have stars at elbow and foot;

  Though they go mad they shall be sane,

  Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;

  Though lovers be lost love shall not;

  And death shall have no dominion ...

  —DYLAN THOMAS (from “And Death Shall Have No Dominion ”)

  Tell all the truth but tell it slant,

  Success in circuit lies,

  Too bright for our infirm delight

  The truth’s superb surprise;

  As lightning to the children eased

  With explanation kind,

  The truth must dazzle gradually

  Or every man be blind.

  —EMILY DICKINSON

  Many people gave me a great deal of help with these books, ranging from suggestions and moral support to crucial logistical aid. Eva Cumming, Nancy Deming-Williams, Arthur Ross Evans, Andrew Harris, Paul Hudspeth, Peter Stampfel, Doug Werner, Michael Whelan, the lovely folks at DAW Books, and all my friends on GEnie® make up only a small (but significant) sampling of those who helped me finish The Story That Ate My Life.

  Particular thanks for assistance on this final volume of the Bloated Epic goes to Mary Frey, who put a bogglesome amount of energy and time into reading and—for lack of a better word—analyzing a monstrous manuscript. She gave me an incredible boost when I really needed it.

  And, of course, the contributions of my editors, Sheila Gilbert and Betsy Wollheim, are incalculable. Caring a lot is their crime, and here at last is their well-deserved punishment.

  To all of the above, and to all the other friends and supporters unmentioned but by no means unremembered, I give my most heartfelt thanks.

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

  Synopsis of The Dragonbone Chair

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

  Simon, an awkward fourteen year old, is one of the Hayholt’s scullions. His parents are dead, his only real family the chambermaids and their stem mistress, Rachel the Dragon. When Simon can escape his kitchen-work he steals away to the cluttered chambers of Doctor 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 village
s. 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 meander ings through the secret byways of the labyrinthine Hayholt, Simon discovers a secret passage and is almost captured there by Pryrates. Eluding the priest, he enters a hidden underground chamber and finds Josua, who is 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 to mysterious friends, bearing news of what has happened, Pryrates and the king’s guard come to arrest the doctor and Simon. Morgenes is killed 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.

  The dwarfish newcomer is a troll named Binabik, who rides a great gray wolf. He tells Simon he was only passing by, but now he will accompany the boy to Naglimund. Simon and Binabik endure many adventures and strange events on the way to Naglimund: they come to realize that they have fallen afoul of a threat greater than merely a king and his counselor deprived of their prisoner. At last, when they find themselves pursued by unearthly white hounds who wear the brand of Stormspike, a mountain of evil reputation in the far north, they are forced to head for the shelter of Geloë’s forest house, taking with them a pair of travelers they have rescued from the hounds. Geloë, a blunt-spoken forest woman with a reputation as a witch, confers with them and agrees that somehow the ancient Norns, embittered relatives of the Sithi, have become embroiled in the fate of Prester John’s kingdom.

  Pursuers human and otherwise threaten them on their journey to Naglimund. After Binabik is shot with an arrow, Simon and one of the rescued travelers, a servant girl, must struggle on through the forest. They are attacked by a shaggy giant and saved only by the appearance of Josua’s hunting party.

  The prince brings them to Naglimund, where Binabik’s wounds are cared for, and where it is confirmed that Simon has stumbled into a terrifying swirl of events. Elias is coming soon to besiege Josua’s castle. Simon’s serving-girl companion was Princess Miriamele traveling in disguise, fleeing her father, whom she fears has gone mad under Pryrates’ influence. From all over the north and elsewhere, frightened people are flocking to Naglimund and Josua, their last protection against a mad king.

  Then, as the prince and others discuss the coming battle, a strange old Rimmersman named Jarnauga appears in the council’s meeting hall. He is a member of the League of the Scroll, a circle of scholars and initiates of which Morgenes and Binabik’s master were both part, and he brings more grim news. Their enemy, he says, is not just Elias: the king is receiving aid from Ineluki the Storm King, who had once been a prince of the Sithi—but who has been dead for five centuries, and whose bodiless spirit now rules the Norns of Stormspike Mountain, pale relatives of the banished Sithi.

  It was the terrible magic of the gray sword Sorrow that caused Ineluki’s death—that, and mankind’s attack on the Sithi. The League of the Scroll believes that Sorrow has been given to Elias as the first step in some incomprehensible plan of revenge, a plan that will bring the earth beneath the heel of the undead Storm King. The only hope comes from a prophetic poem that seems to suggest that “three swords” might help turn back Ineluki’s powerful magic.

  One of the swords is the Storm King’s Sorrow, already in the hands of their enemy, King Elias. Another is the Rimmersgard blade Minneyar, which was also once at the Hayholt, but whose whereabouts are now unknown. The third is Thorn, black sword of King John’s greatest knight, Sir Camaris. Jarnauga and others think they have traced it to a location in the frozen north. On this slim hope, Josua sends Binabik, Simon, and several soldiers off in search of Thorn, even as Naglimund prepares for siege.

  Others are affected by the growing crisis. Princess Miriamele, frustrated by her uncle Josua’s attempts to protect her, escapes Naglimund in disguise, accompanied by the mysterious monk Cadrach. She hopes to make her way to southern Nabban and plead with her relatives there to aid Josua. Old Duke Isgrimnur, at Josua’s urging, disguises his own very recognizable features and follows after to rescue her. Tiamak, a swamp-dwelling Wrannaman scholar, receives a strange message from his old mentor Morgenes that tells of bad times coming and hints that Tiamak has a part to play. Maegwin, daughter of the king of Hernystir, watches helplessly as her own family and country are drawn into a whirlpool of war by the treachery of High King Elias.

  Simon and Binabik and their company are ambushed by Ingen Jegger, huntsman of Stormspike, and his servants. They are saved only by the reappearance of the Sitha Jiriki, whom Simon had saved from the cotsman’s trap. When he learns of their quest, Jiriki decides to accompany them to Urmsheim Mountain, legendary abode of one of the great dragons, in search of Thorn.

  By the time Simon and the others reach the mountain, King Elias has brought his besieging army to Josua’s castle at Naglimund, and though the first attacks are repulsed, the defenders suffer great losses. At last Elias’ forces seem to retreat and give up the siege, but before the stronghold’s inhabitants can celebrate, a weird storm appears on the northern horizon, bearing down on Naglimund. The storm is the cloak under which Ineluki’s own horrifying army of Norns and giants travels, and when the Red Hand, the Storm King’s chief servants, throw down Naglimund’s gates, a terrible slaughter begins. Josua and a few others manage to flee the ruin of the castle. Before escaping into the great forest, Prince Josua curses Elias for his conscienceless bargain with the Storm King and swears that he will take their father’s crown back.

  Simon and his companions climb Urmsheim, coming through great dangers to discover the Uduntree, a titanic frozen waterfall. There they find Thorn in a tomblike cave. Before they can take the sword and make their escape, Ingen Jegger appears once more and attacks with his troop of soldiers. The battle awakens Igjarjuk, the white dragon, who has been slumbering for years beneath the ice. Many on both sides are killed. Simon alone is left standing, trapped on the edge of a cliff; as the ice-worm bears down upon him, he lifts Thorn and swings it. The dragon’s scalding black blood spurts over him as he is struck senseless.

  Simon awakens in a cave on the troll mountain of Yiqanuc. Jiriki and Haestan, an Erkynlandish soldier, nurse him to health. Thorn has been rescued from Urmsheim, but Binabik is being held prisoner by his own people, along with Sludig the Rimmersman, under senten
ce of death. Simon himself has been scarred by the dragon’s blood and a wide swath of his hair has turned white. Jiriki names him “Snowlock” and tells Simon that, for good or for evil, he has been irrevocably marked.

  Synopsis of Stone of Farewell

  Simon, the Sitha Jiriki, and soldier Haestan are honored guests in the mountaintop city of the diminutive Qanuc trolls. But Sludig—whose Rimmersgard folk are the Qanuc’s ancient enemies—and Simon’s troll friend Binabik are not so well treated; Binabik’s people hold them both captive, under sentence of death. An audience with the Herder and Huntress, rulers of the Qanuc, reveals that Binabik is being blamed not only for deserting his tribe, but for failing to fulfill his vow of marriage to Sisqi, youngest daughter of the reigning family. Simon begs Jiriki to intercede, but the Sitha has obligations to his own family, and will not in any case interfere with trollish justice. Shortly before the executions, Jiriki departs for his home.

  Although Sisqi is bitter about Binabik’s seeming fickleness, she cannot stand to see him killed. With Simon and Haestan, she arranges a rescue of the two prisoners, but as they seek a scroll from Binabik’s master’s cave which will give them the information necessary to find a place named the Stone of Farewell—which Simon has learned of in a vision—they are recaptured by the angry Qanuc leaders. But Binabik’s master’s death-testament confirms the troll’s story of his absence, and its warnings finally convince the Herder and Huntress that there are indeed dangers to all the land which they have not understood. After some discussion, the prisoners are pardoned and Simon and his companions are given permission to leave Yiqanuc and take the powerful sword Thorn to exiled Prince Josua. Sisqi and other trolls will accompany them as far as the base of the mountains.