Copyright © 1993 by Tad Williams.
All Rights Reserved.
Cover An by Michael Whelan.
Maps by Tad Williams.

For color prints of Michael Whelan paintings,
please contact:

Glass Onion Graphics
P. 0. Box 88
Brookfield. CT 06804

DAW Book Collectors No. 947.
DAW Books are distributed by Penguin U. S. A.

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

This series is dedicated to my mother,
Barbara Jean Evans,
who taught me to search for other worlds,
and to share the things I find in them.

This final volume. To Green Angel Tower,
in itself a little world of heartbreak and joy,
I dedicate to Nancy Deming-Williams,
with much, much love.

If you purchase this book without a cover you should be aware that this
book may have been stolen properly and reported as "unsold and destroyed"
to the publisher. In such case neither the author nor the publisher has re-
ceived any payment for this "stripped book."

First Paperback Printing, April 1994
19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10




DAW TRADEMARK REGISTERED

U. S. PAT OFF. AND FOREIGN COUNTRIES

——MARC A REGISTRADA.

HECHO EN U.S.A.

PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.

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 fool;

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

x                      Tad Williams

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 re-
ally needed it.

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

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

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

Synopsis of
The DnuJonfione 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 Mor-
genes, 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 disfig-
uring wound, argues harshly with the king-to-be about
Pryrates, the ill-reputed priest who is one of Elias' clos-
est advisers. The brothers' feud is a cloud of foreboding
over castle and country.

Elias' reign as king starts well, but a drought comes
and plague strikes several of the nations of Osten Ard.

XII Tad Williams

Soon outlaws roam the roads and people begin to vanish
from isolated villages. The order of things is breaking
down, and the king's subjects are losing confidence in his
rule, but nothing seems to bother the monarch or his
friends. As rumblings of discontent begin to be heard
throughout the kingdom, Elias' brother Josua disap-
pears—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 be-
ing held captive for use in some terrible ritual planned by
Pryrates. Simon fetches Doctor Morgenes and the two of
them free Josua and take him to the doctor's chambers,
where Josua is sent to freedom down a tunnel that leads
beneath the ancient castle. Then, as Morgenes is sending
off messenger birds to mysterious friends, bearing news
of what has happened, Pryrates and the king's guard come
to arrest the doctor and Simon. Morgenes is killed fight-
ing Pryrates, but his sacrifice allows Simon to escape into
the tunnel-

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

Life in the wilderness on the edge of the great forest
Aldheorte is miserable, and weeks later Simon is nearly

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER                 XIII

dead from hunger and exhaustion, but still far away from
his destination, Josua's northern keep at Naglimund. Go-
ing to a forest cot to beg, he finds a strange being caught
in a 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 pass-
ing by, but now he will accompany the boy to Naglimund.
Simon and Binabik endure many adventures and strange
events on the way to Naglimund; they come to realize
that they have fallen afoul of a threat greater than merely
a king and his counselor deprived of their prisoner. At
last, when they find themselves pursued by unearthly
white hounds who wear the brand of Stormspike, a moun-
tain of evil reputation in the far north, they are forced to
head for the shelter of Geloe\ forest house, taking with
them a pair of travelers they have rescued from the
hounds. Geloe, a blunt-spoken Jorest woman with a repu-
tation as a witch, confers with them and agrees that some-
how the ancient Noms, embittered relatives of the Sithi,
have become embroiled in the fate of Prester John's king-
dom.

Pursuers human and otherwise threaten them on their
journey to Naglimund, After Binabik is shot with an ar-
row, Simon and one of the rescued travelers, a servant
girl, must struggle on through the forest. They are at-
tacked by a shaggy giant and saved only by the appear-
ance of Josua's hunting party.

The prince brings them to Naglimund, where Binabik's
wounds are cared for, and where it is confirmed that Si-
mon has stumbled into a terrifying swirl of events. Elias
is coming soon to besiege Josua's castle. Simon's serving-
girl companion was Princess Miriamele traveling in dis-
guise, fleeing her father, whom she fears has gone mad
under Pryrates' influence. From all over the north and

XIV Tad Williams

elsewhere, frightened people are flocking to Naglimund
and Josua, their last protection against a mad king.

Then, as the prince and others discuss the coming bat-
tle, a strange old Rimmersman named 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 pnnce 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 incomprehen-
sible plan of revenge, a plan that will bring the earth be-
neath the heel of the undead Storm King. The only hope
comes from a prophetic poem that seems to suggest that
"three swords" might help turn back Ineluki's powerful
magic.

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

Others are affected by the growing crisis. Princess
Miriamele, frustrated by her uncle Josua's attempts to
protect her, escapes Naglimund in disguise, accompanied
by the mysterious monk Cadrach. She hopes to make her
way to southern Nabban and plead with her relatives
there to aid Josua. Old Duke Isgrimnur, at Josua's urg-
ing, disguises his own very recognizable features and fol-
lows after to rescue her. Tiamak, a swamp-dwelling

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

XV

Wrannaman scholar, receives a strange message from his
old mentor Morgenes that tells of bad times coining 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 ser-
vants. They are saved only by the reappearance of the
Sitha Jiriki, whom Simon had saved from the cotsman's
trap. When he learns of their quest, Jiriki decides to ac-
company them to Urmsheim Mountain, legendary abode
of one of the great dragons, in search of Thorn.

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

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

XVI

Tad Williams

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

struck senseless.                                    .

Simon awakens in a cave on the troll mountain ot
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 sen-
tence of death. Simon himself has been scarred by the
dragon's blood and a wide swath of his hair has turned
white. Jiriki names him "Snowlock" and tells Simon that,
for good or for evil, he has been irrevocably marked.

Synopsis of
Stone of Farewed

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 desert-
ing his tribe, but for failing to fulfill his vow of marriage
to Sisqi, youngest daughter of the reigning family. Simon
begs Jiriki to intercede, but the Sitha has obligations to
his own family, and will not in any case interfere with
trollish justice. Shortly before the executions, Jiriki de-
parts for his home.

Although Sisqi is bitter about Binabik's seeming fickle-
ness, she cannot stand to see him killed. With Simon and
Haestan, she arranges a rescue of the two prisoners, but
as they seek a scroll from Binabik's master's cave which
will give them the information necessary to find a place
named the Stone of 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 Si-

xvin                  Tad Williams

mon and his companions are given permission to leave
Yiqanuc and take the powerful sword Thorn to exiled
Prince Josua. Sisqi and other trolls will accompany them
as far as the base of the mountains.

Meanwhile, Josua and a small band of followers have
escaped the destruction of Naglimund and are wandering
through the Aldheorte Forest, chased by the Storm King's
Noms. They must defend themselves against not only ar-
rows and spears but dark magic, but at last they are met
by Geloe, the forest woman, and Leieth, the mute child
Simon had rescued from the terrible hounds of
Stormspike. The strange pair lead Josua's party through
the forest to a place that once belonged to the Sithi, where
the Norns dare not pursue them for fear of breaking the
ancient Pact between the sundered kin. Geloe then tells
them they should travel on to another place even more sa-
cred to the Sithi, the same Stone of Farewell to which she
had directed Simon in the vision she sent him.

Miriamele, daughter of High King Elias and niece of
Josua, is traveling south in hope of finding allies for
Josua among her relatives in the courts of Nabban; she is
accompanied by the dissolute monk Cadrach. They are
captured by Count Stredwe of Perdruin, a cunning and
mercenary man, who tells Miriamele he is going to de-
liver her to an unnamed person to whom he owes a debt.
To Miriamele's joy, this mysterious personage turns out to
be a friend, the priest Dinivan, who is secretary to Lector
Ranessin, leader of Mother Church. Dinivan is secretly a
member of the League of the Scroll, and hopes that
Miriamele can convince the lector to denounce Elias and
his counselor, the renegade priest Pryrates. Mother
Church is under siege, not only from Elias, who demands
the church not interfere with him, but from the Fire
Dancers, religious fanatics who claim the Storm King
comes to them in dreams. Ranessin listens to what
Miriamele has to say and is very troubled.

Simon and his companions are attacked by snow-giants
on their way down from the high mountains, and the sol-
dier Haestan and many trolls are killed. Later, as he
broods on the injustice of life and death, Simon inadver-

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER              XIX

tently awakens the Sitha mirror Jiriki had given him as a
summoning charm, and travels on the Dream Road to en-
counter first the Sitha matriarch Amerasu, then the terri-
ble Nom Queen Utuk'ku. Amerasu is trying to understand
the schemes of Utuk'ku and the Storm King, and is trav-
eling the Dream Road in search of both wisdom and al-
lies.

Josua and the remainder of his company at last emerge
from the forest onto the grasslands of the High Thrithing,
where they are almost immediately captured by the no-
madic clan led by March-Thane Fikolmij, who is the fa-
ther of Josua's lover Vorzheva. Fikolmij begrudges the
loss of his daughter, and after beating the prince severely,
arranges a duel in which he intends that Josua should be
killed; Fikolmij's plan fails and Josua survives. Fikolmij
is then forced to pay off a bet by giving the prince's com-
pany horses. Josua, strongly affected by the shame
Vorzheva feels at seeing her people again, marries her
in front of Fikolmij and the assembled clan. When
Vorzheva's father gleefully announces that soldiers of
King Elias are coming across the grasslands to capture
them, the prince and his followers ride away east toward
the Stone of Farewell.

In far off Hemystir, Maegwin is the last of her line. Her
father the king and her brother have both been killed
fighting Elias' pawn Skali, and she and her people have
taken refuge in caves in the Grianspog Mountains.
Maegwin has been troubled by strange dreams, and finds
herself drawn down into the old mines and caverns be-
neath the Grianspog. Count Eolair, her father's most
trusted liege-man, goes in search of her, and together he
and Maegwin enter the great underground city of
Mezutu'a. Maegwin is convinced that the Sithi live there,
and that they will come to the rescue of the Hernystiri as
they did in the old days, but the only inhabitants they dis-
cover in the crumbling city are the dwarrows, a strange,
timid group of delvers distantly related to the immortals.
The dwarrows, who are metalwrights as well as stone-
crafters, reveal that the sword Minneyar that Josua's peo-
ple seek is actually the blade known as Bright-Nail,

xx                    Tad Williams

which was buried with Prester John, father of Josua and
Elias. This news means little to Maegwin, who is shat-
tered to find that her dreams have brought her people no
real assistance. She is also at least as troubled by what
she considers her foolish love for Eolair, so she invents
an errand for him—taking news of Minneyar and maps of
the dwarrows' diggings, which include tunnels below
Elias' castle, the Hayholt, to Josua and his band of survi-
vors. Eolair is puzzled and angry at being sent away, but
goes.

Simon and Binabik and Sludig leave Sisqi and the
other trolls at the base of the mountain and continue
across the icy vastness of the White Waste. Just at the
northern edge of the great forest, they find an old abbey
inhabited by children and their caretaker, an older girl
named Skodi. They stay the night, glad to be out of the
cold, but Skodi proves to be more than she seems: in the
darkness, she traps the three of them by witchcraft, then
begins a ceremony in which she intends to invoke the
Storm King and show him that she has captured the
sword Thorn. One of the undead Red Hand appears be-
cause of Skodi's spell, but a child disrupts the ritual and
brings up a monstrous swarm of diggers. Skodi and the
children are killed, but Simon and the others escape,
thanks largely to Bmabik's fierce wolf Qantaqa. But Si-
mon is almost mad from the mind-touch of the Red Hand,
and rides away from his companions, crashing into a tree
at last and striking himself senseless. He falls down a gul-
ley, and Binabik and Sludig are unable to find him. At
last, full of remorse, they take the sword Thom and con-
tinue on toward the Stone of Farewell without him.

Several people besides Miriamele and Cadrach have ar-
rived at the lector's palace in Nabban. One of them is
Josua's ally Duke Isgrimnur, who is searching for
Miriamele. Another is Pryrates, who has come to bring
Lector Ranessin an ultimatum from the king. The lector
angrily denounces both Pryrates and Elias; the king's em-
issary walks out of the banquet, threatening revenge.

That night, Pryrates metamorphoses himself with a
spell he has been given by the Storm King's servitors, and

TO GREEN ANOEL TOWER

XXI

becomes a shadowy thing. He kills Dinivan and then bru-
tally murders the lector. Afterward, he sets the halls
aflame to cast suspicion on the Fire Dancers. Cadrach,
who greatly fears Pryrates and has spent the night urging
Miriamele to flee the lector's palace with him, finally
knocks her senseless and drags her away. Isgrimnur finds
the dying Dinivan, and is given a Scroll League token for
the Wrannaman Tiamak and instructions to go to the inn
named Pelippa 's Bowl in Kwanitupul, a city on the edge
of the marshes south of Nabban.

Tiamak, meanwhile, has received an earlier message
from Dinivan and is on his way to Kwanitupul, although
his journey almost ends when he is attacked by a croco-
dile. Wounded and feverish, he arrives at Peiippa's Bowl
at last and gets an unsympathetic welcome from the new
landlady.

Miriamele awakens to find that Cadrach has smuggled
her into the hold of a ship. While the monk has lain in
drunken sleep, the ship has set sail. They are quickly
found by Can Itai, a Niskie, whose job is to keep the ship
safe from the menacing aquatic creatures called kilpa. Al-
though Gan Itai takes a liking to the stowaways, she nev-
ertheless turns them over to tne ship's master, Aspitis
Proves, a young Nabbanai nobleman.

Far to the north, Simon has awakened from a dream in
which he again heard the Sitha-woman Amerasu, and in
which he has discovered that Ineluki the Storm King is
her son. Simon is now lost and alone in the trackless,
snow-covered Aldheorte Forest. He tries to use Jiriki's
mirror to summon help, but no one answers his plea. At
last he sets out in what he hopes is the right direction, al-
though he knows he has little chance of crossing the
scores of leagues of winterbound woods alive. He ekes
out a meager living on bugs and grass, but it seems only
a question of whether he will first go completely mad or
starve to death. He is finally saved by the appearance of
Jiriki's sister Aditu, who has come in response to the
mirror-summoning. She works a kind of traveling-magic
that appears to turn winter into summer, and when it is
finished, she and Simon enter the hidden Sithi stronghold

xxii                   Tad Williams

of Jao e-Tinukai'i. It is a place of magical beauty and
timelessness. When Jiriki welcomes him, Simon's joy is
great; moments later, when he is taken to see Likimeya
and Shima'onari, parents of Jiriki and Aditu, that joy
turns to horror. The leaders of the Sithi say that since no
mortal has ever been permitted in secret Jao e-Tinukai'i,
Simon must stay there forever.

Josua and his company are pursued into the northern
grasslands, but when they turn at last in desperate resist-
ance, it is to find that these latest pursuers are not Elias'
soldiers, but Thrithings-folk who have deserted Fikolmij's
clan to throw in their lot with the prince. Together, and
with Geloe leading the way, they at last reach Sesuad'ra,
the Stone of Farewell, a great stone hill in the middle of
a wide valley. Sesuad'ra was the place in which the Pact
between the Sithi and Norns was made, and where the
parting of the two kin took place. Josua's long-suffering
company rejoices at finally possessing what will be, for a
little while, a safe haven. They also hope they can now
discover what property of the three Great Swords will al-
low them to defeat Elias and the Storm King, as promised
in the ancient rhyme of Nisses.

Back at the Hayholt, Elias' madness seems to grow
ever deeper, and Earl Guthwulf, once the king's favorite,
begins to doubt the king's fitness to rule. When Elias for-
ces him to touch the gray sword Sorrow, Guthwulf is al-
most consumed by the sword's strange inner power, and
is never after the same. Rachel the Dragon, the Mistress
of Chambermaids, is another Hayholt denizen dismayed
by what she sees happening around her. She learns that
the priest Pryrates was responsible for what she thinks
was Simon's death, and decides something must be done.
When Pryrates returns from Nabban, she stabs him. The
priest has become so powerful that he is only slightly in-
jured, but when he turns to blast Rachel with withering
magics, Guthwulf interferes and is blinded. Rachel es-
capes in the confusion.

Miriamele and Cadrach, having told the ship's master
Aspitis that she is the daughter of a minor nobleman, are
treated with hospitality; Miriamele in particular comes in

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER                XXI11

for much attention. Cadrach becomes increasingly mo-
rose, and when he tries to escape the ship, Aspitis has him
put in irons. Miriamele, feeling trapped and helpless and
alone, allows Aspitis to seduce her.

Meanwhile, Isgrimnur has laboriously made his way
south to Kwanitupul. He finds Tiamak staying at the inn,
but no sign of Miriamele. His disappointment is quickly
overwhelmed by astonishment when he discovers that the
old simpleton who works as the inn's doorkeeper is Sir
Camaris, the greatest knight of Prester John's era, the
man who once wielded Thorn. Camaris was thought to
have died forty years earlier, but what truly happened re-
mains a mystery, because the old knight is as witless as a
very young child.

Still carrying the sword Thorn, Binabik and Sludig es-
cape pursuing snow-giants by building a raft and floating
across the great storm-filled lake that was once the valley
around the Stone of Farewell.

In Jao e-Tinukai'i, Simon's imprisonment is more bor-
ing than frightening, but his fears for his embattled
friends are great. The Sitha First Grandmother Amerasu
calls for him, and Jiriki brings him to her strange house.
She probes Simon's memories Tor anything that might
help her to discern the Storm King's plans, then sends
him away.

Several days later Simon is summoned to a gathering
of all the Sithi. Amerasu announces she will tell them
what she has learned of Ineluki, but first she berates her
people for their unwillingness to fight and their unhealthy
obsession with memory and, ultimately, with death. She
brings out one of the Witnesses, an object which, like
Jiriki's mirror, allows access to the Road of Dreams.
Amerasu is about to show Simon and the assembled Sithi
what the Storm King and Nom Queen are doing, but in-
stead Utuk'ku herself appears in the Witness and de-
nounces Amerasu as a lover of mortals and a meddler.
One of the Red Hand is then manifested, and while Jiriki
and the other Sithi battle the flaming spirit, Ingen Jegger,
the Nom Queen's mortal huntsman, forces his way into

xxiv                  Tad Williams

Jao e-Tinukai'i and murders Amerasu, silencing her be-
fore she can share her discoveries.

Ingen is killed and the Red Hand is driven away, but
the damage has been done. With all the Sithi plunged into
mourning, Jiriki's parents rescind their sentence and send
Simon, with Aditu for a guide, out of Jao e-Tinukai'i. As
he departs, he notices that the perpetual summer of the
Sithi haven has become a little colder.

At the forest's edge Aditu puts him in a boat and gives
him a parcel from Amerasu that is to be taken to Josua.
Simon then makes his way across the rainwater lake to
the Stone of Farewell, where he is met by his friends. For
a little while, Simon and the rest will be safe from the

growing storm.

Foreword

^

GutfvwuSf, EorC of Uianyeat/ ran his fingers back

and forth across the scarred wood of Prester John's Great
Table, disturbed by the unnatural stillness. Other than the
noisy breathing of King Elias' cupbearer and the clank of
spoons against bowls, the great hall was quiet—far qui-
eter than it should be while almost a dozen people ate
their evening meal. The silence seemed doubly oppressive
to blind Guthwulf, although it was not exactly surprising:

in these days only a few still dined at the king's table, and
those who spent time in Elias' presence seemed more and
more anxious to get away again without tempting fate by
anything so risky as supper-table conversation.

A few weeks before, a mercenary captain named Uigart
from the Meadow Thrithing had made the mistake of jok-
ing about the easy virtue of Nabbanai women. This was a
common view among Thrithings-men, who could not un-
derstand women who painted their faces and wore dresses
that displayed what the wagon-dwellers thought of as a
shameless amount of bare flesh. Uigart's coarse joke
would generally have gone unremarked in the company of
other men, and since there were few women stil! living in
the Hayholt, only men sat around Elias' table. But the
mercenary had forgotten—if he had ever known—that the
High King's wife, killed by a Thrithings arrow, had been
a Nabbanai noblewoman. By the time the after-supper
custard arrived, Uigart's head was already dangling from
an Erkynguardsman's saddle horn, on its way to the

26

Tad Williams

spikes atop the Nearulagh Gate for the delectation of the

resident ravens.

It was a long time since the Hayholt's tabletalk had

sparkled, Guthwulf reflected, but these days meals were
eaten in almost funereal silence, interrupted only by the
grunts of sweating servitors—each working hard to take
up the slack of several vanished fellows—and the occa-
sional nervous compliments offered by the few nobles
and castle functionaries unable to escape the king's invi-
tation.

Now Guthwulf heard a murmur of quiet speech and

recognized Sir Fluiren's voice, whispering something to
the king. The ancient knight had just returned from his
native Nabban, where he had been acting as Elias' emis-
sary to Duke Benigaris; tonight he held the place of honor
at the High King's right hand. The old man had told
Guthwulf that his conference with the king earlier that
day had been quite ordinary, but still Elias had seemed
troubled all through the meal. Guthwulf could not Judge
this by sight, but decades of time spent in his presence let
him put images to each straining inflection, each of the
High King's strange remarks. Also, Guthwulf's hearing,
smell, and touch, which seemed far more acute since he
had lost the use of his eyes, were sharper still in the pres-
ence of Elias' terrible sword Sorrow.

Ever since the king had forced Guthwulf to touch it,
the gray blade seemed to him almost a living thing, some-
thing that knew him, that waited quietly but with terrible
awareness, like a stalking animal that had caught his
scent. Its mere presence lifted his hackles and made all
his nerves and sinews feel tight-strung. Sometimes in the
middle of the night, when the Earl of Utanyeat lay
blackly awake, he thought he could feel the blade right
through the hundreds of cubits of stone that separated his
chambers from the king's, a gray heart whose beating he

alone could hear.

Elias pushed back his chair suddenly, the squeak of
wood on stone startling everyone into silence. Guthwulf
pictured spoons and goblets halted in midair, dripping.

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER

"Damn you, old man," the king snarled, "do you serve
me or that pup Benigaris?"

"I only tell you what the duke says. Highness," qua-
vered Sir Fluiren. "But 1 think he means no disrespect. He
is having troubles along his borders from the Thrithings-
clans, and the Wran-folk have been balky...."

"Should I care?!" Guthwulf could almost see Elias nar-
rowing his eyes, so many times had he watched the
changes that anger worked on the king's features. His
pale face would be sallow and slightly moist. Lately,
Guthwulf had heard the servants whispering that the king
was becoming very thin.

"I helped Benigaris to his throne, Aedon curse him!
And I gave him a lector who would not interfere!"

This said, Elias paused. Guthwulf, alone of all the com-
pany, heard a sharp intake of breath from Pryrates, who
was seated across from the blind earl. As though sensing
he might have gone too far, the king apologized with a
shaky Jest and returned to quieter conversation with
Fluiren.

Guthwulf sat dumbstruck for a moment, then hurriedly
lifted his spoon, eating to cover his sudden fright. What
must he look like? Was everyone staring at him—could
they all see his treacherous flush? The king's words about
the lectorship and Pryrates' gasp of alarm echoed over
and over in his mind. The others would no doubt assume
that Elias referred to influencing the selection of the pli-
able Escritor Velligis to succeed Ranessin as lector—but
Guthwulf knew better. Pryrates' discomfiture when it
seemed the king might say too much confirmed what
Guthwulf had already half-suspected: Pryrates had ar-
ranged Ranessin's death. And now Guthwulf felt sure that
Elias knew it, too—perhaps had even ordered the killing.
The king and his counselor had made bargains with de-
mons and had murdered God's highest priest.

At that moment, sitting with a great company around
the table, Guthwulf felt himself as alone as a man upon a
windswept peak. He could not bear up under the burdens
of deception and fear any longer. It was time to flee. Bet-
ter to be a blind beggar in the worst cesspits of Nabban

28

Tad Williams

than stay a moment longer in this cursed and haunted
keep.

Guthwulf pushed open the door of his chamber and
paused in the frame to let the chill hallway air wash over
him. It was midnight. Even had he not heard the proces-
sion of sorrowful notes ring from Green Angel Tower, he
would have recognized the deeper touch of cold against
his cheeks and eyes, the sharp edge that the night had
when the sun was at its farthest retreat.

It was strange to use eyes to feel with, but now that
Pryrates had blasted away his sight, they had proved to be
the most sensitive part of him, registering every change in
wind and weather with a subtlety of perception finer even
than that of his fingertips. Still, useful as his blinded orbs
were, there was something horrible about using them so.
Several nights he had wakened sweating and breathless
from dreams of himself as a shapeless crawling thing
with fleshy stalks that pushed out from its face, sightless
bulbs that wavered like snail's horns. In his dreams he
could still see; the knowledge that it was himself that he
looked at dragged him gasping up from sleep, time and
again, back into the real darkness that was now his per-
manent home.

Guthwulf moved out into the castle hallway, surprised

as always to find himself still in blackness as he stepped
from one room to another. As he closed the door on the
chamber, and thus on his brazier of smoldering coals,
the chill grew worse. He heard the muffled chinking of
the armored sentries on the walls beyond the open win-
dow, then listened to the wind rise and smother the rattle
of their surcoats beneath its own moaning song. A dog
yipped in the town below, and somewhere, past several
turns of the hallway, a door softly opened and closed.

Guthwulf rocked back and forth uncertainly for a mo-
ment, then took a few more steps away from his door. If
he were to leave, he must leave now—it was useless to
stand maundering in the hallway. He should hurry and
take advantage of the hour: with all the world blinded by
night, he was almost on equal terms again. What other

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

29

choice was left? He had no stomach for what his king had
become. But he must go in secret. Although Elias now
had little use for Guthwulf, a High King's Hand who
could not ride to battle, still Guthwulf doubted that his
once-friend would simply let him go. For a blind man to
leave the castle where he was fed and housed, and also to
flee his old comrade Elias, who had protected him from
Pryrates' righteous anger, smacked too much of treach-
ery—or at least it would to the man on the Dragonbone
Chair.

Guthwulf had considered this for some time, had even
rehearsed his route. He would make his way down into
Erchester and spend the night at St. Sutrin's—the cathe-
dral was all but deserted, and the monks there were char-
itable to any mendicants brave enough to spend nights
inside the city walls. When morning came, he would mix
with the straggle of outgoing folk on the Old Forest Road,
traveling eastward into Hasu Vale. From there, who
knew? Perhaps on toward the grasslands, where rumor
whispered that Josua was building a rebel force. Perhaps
to an abbey in Stanshire or elsewhere, some place that
would be a refuge at least until Elias' unimaginable game
finally threw down everything.'

Now it was time to stop thinking. Night would hide
him from curious eyes; daylight would find him sheltered
in St. Sutrin's. It was time to go.

But even as he started down the hallway he felt a
feather-light presence at his side—a breath, a sigh, the in-
definable sense of someone there. He turned, hand flailing
out. Had someone come to stop him after all?

"Who... ?"

There was no one. Or, if someone was indeed near, that
one now stood silent, mocking his sightlessness.
Guthwulf felt a curious, abrupt unsteadiness, as though
the floor tilted beneath his feet. He took another step and
suddenly felt the presence of the gray sword very
strongly, its peculiar force all around. For a moment he
thought the walls had fallen away. A harsh wind passed
over and through him, then was gone.

What madness was this?

Tad Williams

30

Blinded and unmanned. He almost wept. Cursed.
Guthwulf steeled himself and walked away from the
security of his chamber door, but the curious sense of dis-
location accompanied him as he made his way through
the Hayholt's acres of corridors. Unusual objects passed
beneath his questing fingers, delicate furnishings and
smooth-polished but intricately figured balusters unlike
anything he remembered from these halls. The door to the
quarters once occupied by the castle chambermaids
swung unbolted, yet though he knew the rooms to be
empty—their mistress had smuggled all of her charges
out of the castle before her attack on Pryrates—he heard
dim voices whispering in the depths. Guthwulf shud-
dered, but kept walking. The earl already knew the shift-
ing and untrustworthy nature of the Hayholt in these
days; even before he lost his sight it had become a

weirdly inconstant place.

Guthwulf continued to count his paces. He had prac-
ticed the journey several times in recent weeks: it was
thirty-five steps to the turning of the corridor, two dozen
more to the main landing, then out into the narrow, wind-
chilled Vine Garden. Half a hundred paces more and he
was back beneath a roof once again, making his way
down the chaplain's walking hall.

The wall became warm beneath his fingers, then ab-
ruptly turned blazingly hot. The earl snatched his hand
away, gasping in shock and pain. A thin cry wafted down

the corridor.

'*... T'si e-isi'ha as-irigH... /"

He reached a trembling hand out to the wall again and
felt only stone, damp and night-cold. The wind fluttered
his clothing—the wind, or a murmuring, insubstantial
crowd. The feeling of the gray sword was very strong.

Guthwulf hurried through the castle corridors, trailing
his fingers as lightly as he could over the frighteningly
changeable walls. As far as he could tell, he was the only
real living thing in these halls. The strange sounds and the
touches light as smoke and moths' wings were only phan-
tasms, he assured himself—they could not hinder him.
They were the shadows of Pryrates' sorcerous meddling.

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

3i
He would not let them obstruct his flight. He would not
stay prisoned in this corrupted place.

The earl touched the rough wood of a door and found
to his fierce joy that he had counted truly. He fought to
restrain a cry of triumph and overwhelming relief. He had
reached the small portal beside the Greater Southern
Door. Beyond would be open air and the commons that
served the Inner Baitey.

But when he pushed it open and stepped through, in-
stead of the bitter night air the earl had expected, he felt
a hot wind blowing and the heat of many fires upon his
skin. Voices murmured, pained, fretful.

Mother of God.' Has the Hayholt caught fire?

Guthwulf stepped back but could not find the doorway
again. His fingers instead scrabbled at stone which grew
hotter beneath his touch. The murmurs slowly rose into a
drone of many agitated voices, soft and yet piercing as
the hum of a beehive. Madness, he told himself, illusion.
He must not give in. He staggered ahead, still counting
his steps. Soon his feet were slipping in the mud of the
commons, yet somehow at the same moment his heels
clicked on smooth tiles. The invisible castle was in some
terrible flux, burning and trembling one moment, cold
and substantial the next, and all in total silence as its ten-
ants slept on, unaware.

Dream and reality seemed almost completely interwo-
ven, his personal blackness awash in whispering ghosts
that confused his counting, but still Guthwulf struggled
on with the grim resolve that had carried him through
many dreadful campaigns as Elias' captain. He trudged
on toward the Middle Bailey, stopping at last to rest for
a moment near—according to his faltering calculations—
the spot where the castle doctor's chambers had once
stood. He smelled the sour tang of the charred timbers,
reached out and felt them crumble into rotted powder be-
neath his touch, and distractedly remembered the confla-
gration that had killed Morgenes and several others.
Suddenly, as though summoned up by his thoughts, crack-
ling flames leaped all around him, surrounding him with
fire. This could be no illusion—he could feel the deadly

32 Tad Williams

blaze! The heat enclosed him like a crushing fist, balking
him no matter which way he turned- Guthwulf gave a
choked cry of despair. He was trapped, trapped! He must
bum to death!

"Ruakha, ruakha Asu'a!" Ghostly voices were crying
from beyond the flames. The presence of the gray sword
was inside him now, in everything. He thought he could
hear its unearthly music, and fainter, the songs of its un-
natural brothers. Three swords. Three unholy swords.
They knew him now,

There was a rustle like the beating of many wings, then
the Earl of Utanyeat suddenly felt an opening appear be-
fore him, an empty spot in the otherwise unbroken wall of
flame—a doorway that breathed cool air. With nowhere
else to turn, he threw his cloak over his head and stum-
bled down into a hall of quieter, colder shadows.




Under Strange Skies

*

Simon. SfWinteft up at the stars swimming in the black
night. He was finding it increasingly difficult to stay
awake. His weary eyes turned to the brightest constella-
tion, a rough circle of lights hovering what seemed a
handsbreadth above the gaping, broken-eggshell edge of
the dome.

There. That was the Spinning Wheel, wasn't it? It did
seem oddly elliptical—as though the very sky in which
the stars hung had been stretched into an unfamiliar
shape—but if that wasn't the Spinning Wheel, what else
could be so high in the sky in* mid-autumn? The Hare?
But the Hare had a little nubbly star close beside it—the
Tail. And the Hare wasn't ever that big, was it?

A claw of wind reached down into the half-ruined
building. Geloe called this hall "the Observatory"—one
of her dry jokes, Simon had decided. Only the passing of
long centuries had opened the white stone dome to the
night skies, so Simon knew it couldn't really have been
an observatory. Surely even the mysterious Sithi couldn't
watch stars through a ceiling of solid rock.

The wind came again, sharper this time, bearing a
flurry of snowflakes. Though it wracked him with shiv-
ers, Simon was thankful: the cHill scraped some of his
drowsiness away. It wouldn't do to fall asleep—not this
night of all nights.

So, now I am a man, he thought. Well. almost. Almost
a man.

Simon drew back the sleeve of his shirt and looked at

Tad Williams

36

his arm. He tried to make the muscles stand up, then
frowned at the less than satisfactory results. He ran his
ringers through the hair on his forearm, feeling the places
where cuts had become ridged scars: here, where a
Hune's blackened nails had left their mark; there, where
he had slipped and dashed himself against a stone on
Sikkihoq's slope. Was that what being grown meant?
Having a lot of scars? He supposed it also meant learning
from the wounds, as well—but what could he learn from
the sort of things that had happened to him during the last

year?

Don't let your friends get killed, he thought sourly.

That's one. Don't go out in the world and get chased by
monsters and madmen. Don't make enemies.

So much for the words of wisdom that people were al-
ways so eager to share with him. No decisions were ever
as easy as they had seemed in Father Dreosan's sermons,
where people always got to make a clean choice between
Evil's Way and the Aedon's Way. In Simon's recent expe-
rience of the world, all the choices seemed between one
unpleasant possibility and another, with only the faintest

reference to good and evil.

The wind skirling through the Observatory dome grew
more shrill. It put Simon's teeth on edge. Despite the
beauty of the intricately sculpted pearlescent walls, this
was still a place that did not seem to welcome him. The
angles were strange, the proportions designed to please an
alien sensibility. Like other products of its immortal ar-
chitects, the Observatory belonged completely to the
Sithi; it would never feel quite comfortable to mortals.

Unsettled, Simon got up and began to pace, the faint
echo of his footsteps lost in the noise of the wind. One of
the interesting things about this large circular hall, he de-
cided, was that it had stone floors, something the Sithi no
longer seemed to utilize. He flexed his toes inside his
boots as a memory of Jao e-Tinukai'i's warm, grassy
meadows tugged at him. He had walked barefoot there,
and every day had been a summer day. Remembering, Si-
mon curled his arms across his chest for warmth and

comfort.

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

37

The Observatory's floor was made up of exquisitely cut
and fitted tiles, but the cylindrical wall seemed to be one
piece, perhaps the very stuff of the Stone of Farewell it-
self. Simon pondered. The other buildings here were also
without visible joint or seam. If the Sithi had carved all
the buildings on the surface directly from the hill's rocky
bones, and had cut down into Sesuad'ra as well—the
Stone seemed shot through with tunnels—how did they
know when to stop? Hadn't they been afraid that if they
made one hole too many the whole rock would collapse
in on itself? That seemed almost as amazing as any other
Sithi magic he had heard of or seen, and just as unavail-
able to mortals—knowing when to stop.

Simon yawned. Usires Aedon, but this night was long!
He stared at the sky, at the wheeling, smoldering stars.

/ want to climb up. I want to look at the moon.

Simon made his way across the smooth stone floor to
one of the long staircases that spiraled gradually up
around the circumference of the rooms, counting the steps
as he went. He had already done this several times during
the long night. When he got to the hundredth step, he sat
down. The diamond gleam of a certain star, which had
been midway along a shallow notch in the decayed dome
when he made his last trip, now stood near the notch's
edge. Soon it would disappear from sight behind the re-
maining shell of the dome.

Good. So at least some time had passed. The night was
long and the stars were strange, but at least time's journey
continued.

He clambered to his feet and continued up, walking the
narrow stairway easily despite a certain light-headedness
mat he had no doubt would be cured by a long sleep. He
climbed until he reached the highest landing, a pillar-
propped collar of stone that at one time had circled (tie
entire building. It had crumbled long ago, and most of it
had fallen; now it extended only a few short ells beyond
its joining with the staircase. The top of the high outer
wall was just above Simon's head. A few careful paces
took him along the landing to a spot where the breach in
the dome dipped down to only a short distance above

Tad Williams

38

him. He reached up, feeling carefully for good finger-
holds, then pulled himself upward. He swung one of his
legs over the wall and let it dangle over nothingness.

The moon, wound in a wind-tattered veil of clouds,
was nevertheless bright enough to make the pale ruins be-
low gleam like ivory. Simon's perch was a good one. The
Observatory was the only building within Sesuad'ra's
outwall that stood even as high as the wall itself, which
gave the settlement the appearance of one vast, low build-
ing. Unlike the other abandoned Sithi dwelling places he
had seen, no towers had loomed here, no high spires. It
was as though the spirit of Sesuad'ra's builders had been
subdued, or as though they built for some utilitarian rea-
son and not pure pride of craft. Not that the remains were
unappealing: the white stone had a peculiar lambent glow
all its own, and the buildings inside the curtain wall were
laid out in a design of wild but somehow supremely log-
ical geometry. Although it was built on a much smaller
scale than what Simon had seen of Da'ai Chikiza and
Enki-e-Shao'saye, the very modesty of its scope and uni-
formity of its design gave it a simple beauty different

from those other, grander places.

All around the Observatory, as well as around the other
major structures like the Leavetaking House and the
House of Waters—names that Geloe had given them; Si-
mon did not know if they were anything to do with their
original purpose—snaked a system of paths and smaller
buildings, or their remnants, whose interlocking loops and
whorls were as cunningly designed yet naturalistic as the
petals of a flower. Much of the area was overgrown by
encroaching trees, but even the trees themselves revealed
traces of some vestigial order, as the green space in the
middle of a fairy-ring would show where the ancestral

line of mushrooms had begun.

In the center of of what obviously had once been a set-
tlement of rare and subtle beauty lay a strange tiled pla-
teau. It was now largely covered with impertinent grass,
but even by moonlight it still showed some trace of its
original lustily intricate design. Geloe called this central
place the Fire Garden. Simon, comfortably familiar only

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER

39

with the workings of human habitations, would have
guessed it to be a marketplace.

Beyond the Fire Garden, on the other side of the
Leavetaking House, stood a motionless wavefront of pale
conical shapes—the tents of Josua's company, grown now
to a sizable swell by the newcomers who had been trick-
ling in for weeks. There was precious little room left,
even on me broad tabletop summit of the Stone of Fare-
well; many of the most recent arrivals had made them-
selves homes in the warren of tunnels that ran beneath the
hill's stony skin.

Simon sat staring at the flicker of the distant campfires
until he began to feel lonely. The moon seemed very far
away, her face cold and unconcerned.

He did not know how long he had been staring into
empty blackness. For a moment he thought he had fallen
asleep and was now dreaming, but surely this queer feel-
ing of suspension was something real—real and frighten-
ing- He struggled, but his limbs were remote and
nerveless. Nothing of Simon's body seemed to remain but
his two eyes. His thoughts seemed to burn as brightly as
the stars he had seen in the sRy—when there had been a
sky, and stars; when there had been something besides
this unending blackness. Terror coursed through him.

Usires save me, has the Storm King come? Will it be
black forever? God, please bring back the light!

And as if in answer to his prayer, lights began to kindle
in the great dark. They were not stars, as they first
seemed, but torches—tiny pinpoints of light that grew
ever so slowly larger, as though approaching from a great
distance away. The cloud of firefly glimmers became a
stream, the stream became a line, looping and looping in
slow spirals. It was a procession, scores of torches climb-
ing uphill the way Simon himself had climbed up
Sesuad'ra's curving path when he had first come here
from Jao e-Tinukai'i.

Simon could now see the cloaked and hooded figures
who made up the column, a silent host moving with ritual
precision.

40

Tad Williams

I'm on the Dream Road, he realized suddenly. Amerasu
said that I was closer to it than other folk.

But what was he watching?

The line of torchbearers reached a level place and
spread out in a sparkling fan, so that their lights were
carried far out on either side of the hilltop. It was
Sesuad'ra they had climbed, but a Sesuad'ra that even by
torchlight was plainly different than the place Simon
knew. The ruins that had surrounded him were ruins no
longer. Every pillar and wall stood unbroken. Was this the
past, the Stone of Farewell as it once had been, or was it
some strange future version that would someday be
rebuilt—perhaps when the Storm King had subjugated all

Osten Ard?

The great company surged forward onto a flat place Si-
mon recognized as the Fire Garden. There the cloaked
figures set their torches down into niches between the
tiles, or placed them atop stone pedestals, so that a garden
of fire indeed bloomed there, a field of flickering, rip-
pling light. Fanned by the wind, the flames danced;

sparks seemed to outnumber the very stars.

Now Simon found himself suddenly pulled forward
with the surging crowd and down toward the Leavetaking
House. He plummeted through the glittering night, pass-
ing swiftly through the stone walls and into the bright-lit
hall as though he were without substance. There was no
sound but a continuous rushing in his ears. Seen closely,
the images before him seemed to shift and blur along
their edges, as though the world had been twisted ever so
slightly out of its natural shape. Unsettled, he tried to
close his eyes, but found that his dream-self could not
shut out these visions; he could only watch, a helpless

phantom.

Many figures stood at the great table. Globes of cold
fire had been placed in alcoves on every wall, their blue,
fire-orange, and yellow glows casting long shadows
across the carved walls. More and deeper shadows were
cast by the thing atop the table, a construct of concentric
spheres like the great astrolabe Simon had often polished
for Doctor Morgenes—but instead of brass and oak, this

TO  GREEN   ANGEL  TOWER

41

was made entirely from lines of smoldering light, as
though someone had painted the fanciful shapes upon the
air in liquid fire. The moving figures that surrounded it
were hazy, but still Simon knew beyond doubt that they
were Sithi- No one could ever mistake those birdlike pos-
tures, that silken grace.

A Sitha-woman in a sky-blue robe leaned toward the
table and deftly scribed in trails of finger-flame her own
additions to the glowing thing. Her hair was blacker than
shadow, blacker even than the night sky above Sesuad'ra,
a great cloud of darkness about her head and shoulders.
For a moment Simon thought she might be a younger
Amerasu; but though there was much in this one that was
like his memories of First Grandmother, there was also
much that was not.

Beside her stood a white-bearded man in a billowing
crimson robe. Shapes that might have been pale antlers
sprouted from his brow, bringing Simon a pang of
unease—he had seen something like that in other, more
unpleasant dreams. The bearded man leaned forward and
spoke to her; she turned and added a new swirl of fire to
the design.

Although Simon could not see the dark woman's face
clearly, the one who stood across from her was all too
plain. That face was hidden behind a mask of silver, the
rest of her form beneath ice-white robes. As if in answer
to the black-haired woman, the Norn Queen raised her
arm and slashed a line of dull fire all the way across the
construct, then waved her hand once more to lay a net of
delicately smoking scarlet light over the outermost globe.
A man stood beside her, calmly watching her every move.
He was tall and seemed powerfully built, dressed all in
spiky armor of obsidian-black. He was not masked in sil-
ver or otherwise, but still Simon could see little of his
features-

What were they doing? Was this the Pact of Parting
that Simon had heard of—for certainly he was watching
both Silhi and Norn gathered together upon Sesuad'ra.

The blurred figures began to talk more animatedly.
Looping and crisscrossing lines of flame were thrown

42

Tad Williams

into the air around the spheres where they hung in noth-
ingness, bright as the afterimage of a hurtling fire-arrow.
Their speech seemed to turn to harsh words: many of the
shadowy observers, gesticulating with more anger than
Simon had seen in the immortals he knew, stepped for-
ward to the table and surrounded the principal foursome,
but still he could hear nothing but a dull roaring like wind
or rushing water. The flame globes at the center of the
dispute flared up, undulating like a wind-licked bonfire.

Simon wished he could move forward somehow to get
a better view. Was this the past he was watching? Had it
seeped up from the haunted stone? Or was it only a
dream, an imagining brought on by his long night and the
songs he had heard in Jao e-Tinukai'i? Somehow, he felt
sure that it was no illusion. It seemed so real, he felt al-
most as though he could reach out... he could reach out
... and touch....

The sound in his ears began to fade. The lights of
torches and spheres dimmed.

Simon shivered back into awareness. He was sitting
atop the crumbling stone of the Observatory, dangerously
close to the edge. The Sithi were gone. There were no
torches in the Fire Garden, and no living things visible
atop Sesuad'ra except a pair of sentries sitting near the
watchfire down beside the tent city. Bemused, Simon sat
for a little while staring at the distant flames and tried to
understand what he had seen. Did it mean something? Or
was it just a meaningless remnant, a name scratched upon
a wall by a traveler which remained long after that person
was gone?

Simon trudged back down the stairway from the Ob-
servatory roof and returned to his blanket. Trying to un-
derstand his vision made his head hurt. It was becoming
more difficult to think with every hour that passed.

After wrapping his cloak around himself more
tightly—the robe he was wearing beneath was not very
warm—he took a long swallow from his drinking skin.
The water, from one of Sesuad'ra's springs, was sweet
and cold against his teeth. He took another swig, savoring

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER

43
the aftertaste of grass and shade-flowers, and tapped his
lingers on the stone tiles. Dreams or no dreams, he was
supposed to be thinking about the things Deornoth had
told him. Earlier in the night, he had repeated them over
and over in his mind so many times that they had finally
begun to seem like nonsense. Now, when he again tried to
concentrate, he found that the litany Deomoth had so
carefully taught him would not stay in his head, the words
elusive as fish in a shallow pond. His mind roved instead,
and he pondered all the strange happenings he had en-
dured since running away from the Hayholt.

What a time it had been! What things he had seen' Si-
mon was not sure that he would call it an adventure—that
seemed a little too much like something that ended hap-
pily and safely. He doubted the ending would be pleasant,
and enough people had died to make the word "safely" a
cruel jest ... but still, it was definitely an experience far
beyond a scullion's wildest dreams. Simon Mooncalf had
met creatures out of legends, had been in battles, and had
even killed people. Of course, that had proved much less
easy than he had once upon a time imagined it would be,
when he had seen himself as a potential captain of the
}.   king's armies; in fact, it had proved to be very, very up-
'   setting.

Simon had also been chased by demons, was the enemy
of wizards, had become an intimate of noble folk—who
..",  didn't seem much better or worse than kitchen-and-pantry
•_   folk—and had lived as a reluctant guest in the city of the
undying Sithi. Besides safety and warm beds, the only
?   thing his adventure seemed to be lacking was beautiful
?°   maidens. He had met a princess—one he had liked even
.,   when she had seemed just an ordinary girl—but she was
long gone, the Aedon only knew where. There had been
'r  precious little else in the way of feminine company since
i,  then, other than Aditu, Jiriki's sister, but she had been a
'   little too far beyond Simon's awkward understanding.
:   Like a leopard, she was: lovely but quite frightening. He
yearned for someone a little more like himself—but better
^ looking, of course. He rubbed his fuzzy beard, felt his
prominent nose. A lot better looking. He was tired of be-

I

44

Tad Williams

ing alone. He wanted someone to talk to—someone who
would care, who would understand, in a way that not
even his troll-friend Binabik ever could. Someone who
would share things with him ...

Someone who will understand about the dragon, was
his sudden thought.

Simon felt a march of prickling flesh along his back,
not caused by the wind this time. It was one thing to see
a vision of ancient Sithi, no matter how vivid. Lots of
people had visions—madmen by the score in Erchester's
Battle Square shouted about them to one another, and Si-
mon suspected that in Sesuad'ra such things might be
even more common occurrences. But Simon had met a
dragon, which was more than almost anyone could say.
He had stood before Igjarjuk, the ice-worm, and hadn't
backed down. He had swung his sword—well, a sword; it
was more than presumptuous to call Thom his—and the
dragon had fallen. That was truly something wonderful. It
was a thing no man but Prester John had ever done, and
John had been the greatest of all men, the High King.

Of course, John killed his dragon, but I don't believe
Igjarjuk died. The more I think about it, the more certain
I am. I don't think its blood would have made me feel the
way it did if the dragon was dead. And 1 don't think that
I'm strong enough to kill it, even with a sword like Thorn.

But the strange thing was, although Simon had told ev-
eryone exactly what happened on Urmsheim and what he
thought about it all, still some of the folk who now made
the Stone of Farewell their home were calling him
"Dragon Killer," smiling and waving when he passed.
And although he had tried to shrug off the name, people
seemed to take his reticence for modesty. He had even
heard one of the new settlers from Gadrinsett telling her
children the tale, a version that included a vivid descrip-
tion of the dragon's head struck loose from its body by
the force of Simon's blow. Someday soon, what really
happened wouldn't matter at all. The people who liked
him—or liked the story, rather—would say he had single-
handedly butchered the great snow dragon. Those who
didn't care for him would say the whole thing was a lie.

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

45

The idea of those folk passing false stories of his life
made Simon more than a little angry. It seemed to
cheapen things, somehow. Not so much the imagined
naysayers—they could never take away that moment of
pure silence and stillness atop Urmsheim—but the others,
the exaggerators and simplifiers. Those who told it as a
story of unworrying bravery, of some imaginary Simon
who sworded dragons simply because he could, or be-
cause dragons were evil, would be smearing dirty fingers
across an unstained part of his soul. There was so much
more to it than that, so much more that had been revealed
to him in the beast's pale, emotionless eyes, in his own
confused heroism and the burning instant of black blood
. .. the blood that had shown him the world . . . the
world....

Simon straightened up. He had been nodding again. By
God, sleep was a treacherous enemy. You couldn't face it
and fight it; it waited until you were looking the other
way, then stole up quietly. But he had given his word, and
now that he would be a man, his word must be his solemn
bond. So he would stay awake. This was a special night.

The armies of sleep had forced him to drastic measures
by dawn's arrival, but they had not quite managed to de-
feat him. When candle-bearing Jeremias entered the Ob-
servatory, his entire frame tense with the gravity of his
mission, it was to discover Simon sitting cross-legged in
a puddle of fast-freezing water, wet red hair dangling in
his eyes, the white streak that ran through it stark as an
icicle. Simon's long face was alight with triumph.

"I poured the whole water skin over my head," he said
with pride. His teeth were chattering so hard that Jeremias
had to ask him to repeat himself. "Poured water over my
head. To stay awake. What are you doing here?"

"It's time," the other said. "It's nearly dawn. Time for
you to come away."

"Ah." Simon stood up unsteadily. "I stayed awake, Jer-
emias. Didn't sleep once."

Jeremias nodded. His smile was a cautious one. "That's

46

Tad Williams

good, Simon. Come on. There's a fire at Strangyeard's

place."

Simon, who felt weaker and colder than he had thought
he would, draped his arm around the other youth's lean
shoulder for support. Jeremias was so thin now that it was
hard for Simon to remember him as he once had been: a
suety chandler's apprentice, treble-chinned, always huff-
ing and sweating. But for the haunted look that showed
from time to time in his dark-shadowed eyes, Jeremias
looked just like what he now was—a handsome young

squire.

"A fire?" Simon's thoughts had at last caught up with
his friend's words. He was quite giddy. "A good one?
And is there food, too?"

"It's a very good fire." Jeremias was solemn. "One
thing I learned . .. down in the forges. How to make a
proper fire." He shook his head slowly, lost in thought,
then looked up and caught Simon's eye. A shadow flitted
behind his gaze like a hare hunted in the grass, then his
wary smile returned. "As for food—no, of course not.
Not for a while yet, and you know it. But don't worry,
pig, you will probably get a heel of bread or something
this evening."

"Dog," Simon said, grinning, and purposefully leaned
in such a way that Jeremias stumbled under the added
weight. Only after much cursing and mutual insult did
they avoid tumbling over onto the chilly stone flags. To-
gether they staggered through the Observatory door and
out into the pale gray-violet glow of dawn. Eastern light
splashed all across the summit of the Stone of Farewell,
but no birds sang.

Jeremias had been as good as his word. The blaze that
burned in Father Strangyeard's tent-roofed chamber was
gloriously hot—which was Just as well, since Simon had
stepped out of his robe and into a wooden tub. As he
stared around at the white stone walls, at the carvings of
tangled vines and minute flowers, the firelight rippled
across the stonework so that the walls seemed to move
beneath shallow pink and orange waters.

TO  GREEN   ANGEL  TOWER

47

Father Strangyeard raised another pot of water and
poured it over Simon's head and shoulders. Unlike his
earlier self-inflicted bath, this water had at least been
warmed; as it ran down his chilly flesh, Simon thought
that it felt more like flowing blood than water.

*1... May this ... may this water wash away sin and
doubt." Strangyeard paused to fiddle with his eyepatch,
his one squinting eye netted in wrinkles as he tried to re-
member the next passage of the prayer. Simon knew it
was nerves, not forgetfulness: the priest had spent most of
yesterday reading and rereading the short ceremony. "Let
... let then the man so washed and made shriven fear not
to stand before Me, so that I might look into the glass of
his soul and see there reflected the fitness of his being,
the righteousness of his oath ... the righteousness of ...
of his oath ..." The priest squinted again, despairingly,
•*0h . -."

Simon let the heat of the fire beat upon him. He felt
quite boneless and stupid, but that was not such a bad
way to feel. He had been sure he would be nervous, ter-
rified even, but his sleepless night had burned away his
fear.

Strangyeard, running his hand fitfully through his few
remaining wisps of hair, at last summoned up the rest of
the ceremony and hurried through to the ending, as
though afraid the memory might slip away again. When
he finished, the priest helped Jeremias to dry Simon off
with soft cloths, then they gave him back his white robe,
this time with a thick leather belt to wrap around his
waist. Then, as Simon was stepping into his slippers, a
small shape appeared in the doorway.

"Is he now ready?" Binabik asked. The troll spoke very
quietly and gravely, as always full of respect for someone
else's rituals. Simon stared at him and was filled with a
sudden fierce love for the little man. Here was a friend,
truly—one who had stood by him through all adversity.

"Yes, Binabik. I'm ready."

The troll led him out, Strangyeard and Jeremias follow-
ing behind. The sky was more gray than blue, wild with
fragmented clouds. The whole procession matched itself

48

Tad Williams

to Simon's bemused, wandering pace as they made their
way in the morning light.

The path to Josua's tent was lined with spectators, per-
haps ten score in all, mostly Hotvig's Thrithings-folk and
the new settlers from Gadrinsett. Simon recognized a few
faces, but knew that those most familiar to him were
waiting up ahead with Josua. Some of the children waved
to him. Their parents snatched at them and whispered
warningly, fearful of disrupting the solemn nature of the
event, but Simon grinned and waved back. The cold
morning air felt good on his face. A certain giddiness had
taken him over once more, so that he had to repress an
urge to laugh out loud. Who would ever have thought of
such a thing as this? He turned to Jeremias, but the
youth's face was closed, his eyes lowered in meditation
or shyness.

As they reached the open place before Josua's lodging,
Jeremias and Strangyeard dropped back, moving to stand
with the others in a rough semicircle. Sludig, his yellow
beard new-trimmed and braided, beamed at Simon like a
proud father. Dark-haired Deornoth stood beside him
dressed in knightly finery, with the harper Sangfugol, the
duke's son Isom, and old Towser all close by—the jester,
wrapped in a heavy cloak, seemed to be muttering quiet
complaints to the young Rimmersman. Nearer the front of
the tent stood Duchess Outrun and young Leieth. Beside
them stood Geloe. The forest woman's stance was that of
an old soldier forced to put up with a meaningless inspec-
tion, but as Simon caught her yellow eyes she nodded
once, as if acknowledging a job completed.

On the far side of the semicircle were Hotvig and his
fellow randwarders, their tall spears like a thicket of slim
trees. White morning light bled through the clotted
clouds, shining dully on their bracelets and spearheads.
Simon tried not to think about the others, like Haestan
and Morgenes. who should be present but were not.

Framed in the opening between these two groups was a
tent striped in gray, red, and white. Prince Josua stood be-
fore it, his sword Naidel sheathed at his side, a thin circlet
of silver upon his brow. Vorzheva was beside him, her

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

49

own dark cloud of hair unbound, lush upon her shoulders
and moving at the wind's touch.

"Who comes before me?" Josua asked, his voice slow
and measured. As if to belie his heavy tone, he showed
Simon a hint of smile.

Binabik pronounced the words carefully. "One who
would be made a knight. Prince—your servant and God's.
He is Seoman, son of Eahlferend and Susanna."

"Who speaks for him and swears that this is true?"

"Binbiniqegabenik of Yiqanuc am I, and I am swearing
that this is true." Binabik bowed. His courtly gesture sent
a ripple of amusement through the crowd.

"And has he kept his vigil, and been shriven?"

"Yes!" Strangyeard piped up hurriedly. "He did—I
mean, he has!"

Josua fought another smile. "Then let Seoman step for-
ward."

At the touch of Binabik*s small hand on his arm, Simon
took a few steps toward the prince, then sank to one knee
in the thick, rippling grass. A chill moved up his back.

Josua waited a moment before he spoke. "You have
rendered brave service, Seoman. In a time of great dan-
ger, you have risked your life for my cause and returned
with a mighty prize. Now, before the eyes of God and of
your fellows, I stand prepared to lift you up and grant you
title and honor above other men, but also to lay upon your
shoulders burdens beyond those that other men must
carry. Will you swear to accept them all?"

Simon took a breath so his voice would be steady, and
also to make sure of the words Deomoth had so carefully
taught him. "I will serve Usires Aedon and my master. I
will lift up the fallen and defend God's innocents. I will
not turn my eyes from duty. I will defend my prince's
realm from enemies spiritual and corporeal. This I swear
by my name and honor, with Elysia, Aedon's holy
mother, as my witness."

Josua stepped closer, then reached down and laid his
one good hand upon Simon's head. "Then I name you my
man, Seoman, and lay on you the charges of knighthood."
He looked up. "Squire!"

50

Tad Williams

Jeremias stepped forward. "Here, Prince Josua." His
voice shook a little.

"Bring his sword."

After a moment's confusion—the hilt had gotten tan-
gled in Father Strangyeard's sleeve—Jeremias ap-
proached bearing the sword in its tooled leather scabbard.
It was a well-polished but otherwise undistinguished
Erkynlandish blade. Simon felt a moment of regret that
the blade was not Thom, then chastised himself as an
overweening idiot. Could he never be satisfied? Besides,
think of the embarrassment if Thom did not submit to the
ritual and proved heavy as a millstone. He would look a
perfect fool then, wouldn't he? Josua's hand upon his
head suddenly felt as weighty as the black sword itself.
Simon looked down so that no one could see his spread-
ing flush.

When Jeremias had carefully buckled the scabbard onto
Simon's belt, Simon drew the sword, kissed its hilt, then
made the sign of the Tree as he set it on the ground before
Josua's feet.

"In your service. Lord."

The prince withdrew his hand, then pulled slender
Naidel from its scabbard and touched Simon's shoulders,
right, left, then right again.

"Before the eyes of God and of your fellows—rise. Sir
Seoman."

Simon rose tottering to his feet. It was done. He was a
knight. His mind seemed nearly as cloudy as the lowering
sky. There was a long, hushed moment, then the cheering
began.

Hours after the ceremony, Simon awoke gasping from
a dream of smothering darkness to find himself half-
strangled in a knot of blankets. Weak, wintery sunlight
was beaming down on Josua's striped tent; bars of red
light lay across Simon's arm like paint. It was daytime, he
reassured himself. He had been sleeping, and it had only
been a terrible dream....

He sat up, grunting as he unwrapped himself from the
tangle of bedclothes. The tent walls throbbed beneath the

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

5'

wind. Had he cried out? He hoped not. It would be humil-
iating indeed to wake up screaming on the afternoon that
he had been knighted for bravery.

"Simon?" A small shadow appeared on the wall near
the door. "Are you awake?"

"Yes, Binabik." He reached over to retrieve his shirt as
the little man ducked in through the tent flap.

"Were you sleeping well? It is no thing of easiness to
stay awake all the night, and sometimes it is then making
it hard for sleeping after."

"I slept." Simon shrugged. "I had a strange dream."

The troll cocked an eyebrow. "Do you remember it?"

Simon thought for a moment. "Not really. It sort of
slipped away. Something about a king and old flowers,
about the smell of earth ..." He shook his head. It was
gone.

"That, I am thinking, is just as well." Binabik bustled
around the prince's tent, looking for Simon's cloak. He
found it at last, then turned and tossed it to the new-made
knight, who was pulling on his breeches. "Your dreams
are often disturbing to you, but seldom of much help in
gaining more knowledge. Probably, then, it is best you are
not troubled with the memory of each one of them."

Simon felt vaguely slighted. "Knowledge? What do
you mean? Amerasu said that my dreams meant some-
thing. And so did you and Geloe!"

Binabik sighed. "I was meaning only that we are not
having much luck discovering their meaning. So, it seems
to me better that you are not troubled by them, at least for
this moment, when you should be enjoying your great
day!"

The troll's earnest face was enough to make Simon
thoroughly ashamed of his momentary ill humor. "You're
right, Binabik." He buckled on his sword belt. Its unfa-
miliar weight was one more unusual thing in a day of
wonders. "Today I won't think about ... about anything
bad."

Binabik gave him a hearty hand-smack. 'That is my
companion of many journeys that speaks! Let us go now.
Besides the kindness of his tent for your sleeping com-

52

Tad Williams

fort, Josua has made sure that a fine meal awaits us all,
and other pleasures, too."

Outside, the encampment of tents that stood in the shel-
ter of Sesuad'ra's long northeastern wall had been hung
with ribbons of many colors which snapped and streamed
in the powerful wind. Seeing them, Simon could not help
but think of his days in Jao e-Tinukai'i, memories he usu-
ally tried to hold at bay because of the complicated and
unsettling feelings that came with them. All today's fine
words couldn't change the truth, couldn't make the Storm
King go away. Simon was tired of being fearful. The
Stone of Farewell was a refuge only for a little while—
how he longed for a home, for a safe place and freedom
from terror! Amerasu the Ship-Bom had seen his dreams.
She had said he need carry no further burdens, hadn't
she? But Amerasu, who had seen so many things, had
also been blind to others. Perhaps she had been wrong
about Simon's destiny as well.

With the last stragglers, Simon and his companions
passed through the cracked doorway and into the torchlit
warmth of the Leavetaking House. The vast room was
full of people seated on spread cloaks and blankets. The
tiled floors had been cleared of centuries of moss and
grasses; small cookfires burned everywhere. There were
few enough excuses for merriment in these hard days: the
exiles of many places and nations gathered here seemed
determinedly joyful. Simon was called upon to stop at
several fires and share a congratulatory drink, so that it
took some part of an hour before he at last made his way
to the high table—a massive decorated stone slab that
was part of the original Sithi hall—where the prince and
the rest of his company waited.

"Welcome, Sir Seoman." Josua motioned Simon to the
seat at his left. "Our settlers of New Gadrinsett have
spared no effort to make this feast a grand one. There is
rabbit and partridge; chicken, I think; and good silver
trout from the Stefflod." He leaned over to speak more
quietly. Despite the weeks of peace, Simon thought the
prince's face seemed gaunt. "Eat up, lad. Fiercer weather

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER                             53

is coming soon. We may need to live on our fat, like
bears."

"New Gadrinsett?" Simon asked.

"We are but visitors on Sesuad'ra," said Geloe. "The
prince rightly feels that it would be presumptuous to call
our settlement by the name of their sacred place."

"And since Gadrinsett is the source of many of our res-
idents, and the name is appropriate—'Gathering Place* in
the old Erkynlandish tongue—I have named our tent city
after it." He lifted his cup of beaten metal. "New
Gadrinsett!" The company echoed his toast.

The sparse resources of valley and forest had indeed
been put to good use; Simon ate with an enthusiasm that
bordered on frenzy. He had gone unfed since the midday
meal of the day before, and much of his nightlong vigi'
had been taken up with distracted thoughts of food. Even-
tually, sheer exhaustion had taken his appetite away, but
now it had returned at full strength.

Jeremias stood behind him, refilling Simon's cup with
watered wine each time he emptied it. Simon was not yet
comfortable with the idea that his Hayholt companion
should wait upon him, but Jeremias would have it no
other way.

When the one-time chandler's boy had reached
Sesuad'ra, drawn east by the rumor of Josua's growing
army of the disaffected, Simon had been surprised—rot
only by the change in Jeremias' appearance, but by ^lie
very unlikeliness of meeting him again, especially in such
a strange place. But if Simon had been surprised, Jere-
mias had been astounded to discover that Simon was
alive, and even more amazed by the story of what had be-
fallen his friend. He seemed to view Simon's survival as
nothing less than a miracle, and had thrown himself into
Simon's service as one entering religious orders. Faced
with Jeremias' unswerving determination, Simon gave
way with no little embarrassment. He was made uneasy
by his new squire's selfless devotion; when, as sometimes
happened, a hint of their old mocking friendship surfaced,
Simon was much happier.

Although Jeremias made Simon tell and retell all the

54

Tad Williams

things that had happened to him, the chandler's boy was
unwilling to talk much about his own experiences. He
would say only that he had been forced to work in the
forges beneath the Hayholt, and that Inch, Morgenes'
former assistant, had been a cruel master. Simon could
sense much of the untold tale, and silently added to the
slow-talking giant's tally of deserved retribution. After
all, Simon was a knight now, and wasn't that something
that knights did? Dispense justice... ?

"You stare at nothing, Simon," said Lady Vorzheva,
waking him from his thoughts. She was beginning to
show the signs of the growing child within her, but still
had a slightly wild look, like a horse or bird that would
suffer human touch but would never be quite tame. He re-
membered the first time he had seen her across the court-
yard at Naglimund, how he had wondered what could
make such a lovely woman look so fiercely unhappy. She
seemed more contented now, but a hard edge still re-
mained.

"I'm sorry. Lady, I was thinking about ... about the
past, I suppose." He flushed. What did one talk about at
table with the prince's lady? "It is a strange world."

Vorzheva smiled, amused. "Yes, it is. Strange and terri-
ble."

Josua rose and banged his cup on the stone tabletop
until the crowded room at last fell silent. As the host of
unwashed faces stared up at the prince's company, Simon
had a sudden, startling revelation.

All those Gadrinsett folk, with their mouths hanging
open as they watched Josua—they were him! They were
like he had been! He had always been outside, looking in
at the important folk. And now, wonderfully, unbeliev-
ably, he was one of the high company, a knight at the
prince's long table, so that others stared at him
enviously—but he was still the same Simon. What did it
mean?

"We are gathered for many reasons," me prince said.
"First, and most importantly, to give thanks to our God
that we are alive and safe here upon this place of refuge,
surrounded by water and protected from our enemies.

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

55

Also, we are here to celebrate the eve of Saint Granis'
Day, which is a holy day to be observed by fasting and
quiet prayer—but to be observed the night before with
good food and wine!" He lifted his cup to cheers from the
throng. When the noise had died down, he grinned and
continued. "We also celebrate the knighthood of young
Simon, now called Sir Seoman." Another chorus of
cheers. Simon blushed and nodded. "You have all seen
him knighted, seen him take his sword and swear his
oath. But you have not seen—his banner!"

There was much whispering as Outrun and Vorzheva
bent over and hauled up a roll of cloth from beneath the
table; it had been lying right at Simon's feet. Isorn
stepped forward to help them, and together they lifted and
unfurled it.

"The device of Sir Seoman of New Gadrinsett," the
prince declared.

On a field of diagonal gray and red stripes—Josua's
colors—lay the silhouette of a black sword. Twined about
it like a vine was a sinuous white dragon, whose eyes,
teeth, and scales had all been meticulously stitched with
scarlet thread. The crowd hooted and cheered.

"Hooray for the dragon slayer!" a man cried; several
echoed him. Simon ducked his head, face reddening
again, then quickly drained his wine cup. Jeremias, smil-
ing proudly, refilled it. Simon drank down that one, too.
It was glorious, all of it, but still ... deep in his heart, he
could not help feeling that some important point was be-
ing missed. Not just the dragon, although he hadn't slain
it. Not Thorn, although it certainly wasn't Simon's sword,
and might not even be of any use to Josua. Something
was not quite right....

S'Tree, he thought disgustedly, don't you ever gel tired
of complaining, mooncalf?

Josua was banging his cup again. "That is not all! Not
all!" The prince seemed to be enjoying himself.

It must be nice for him to preside over cheerful events
for once.

"There is more!" Josua cried. "One more present, Si-
mon." He waved, and Deomoth stepped away from the

Tad Williams

table, heading for the back of the hall. The hum of con-
versation rose again. Simon drank a little more watered
wine, then thanked Vorzheva and Outrun for their work
on his banner, praising the quality of the stitchery until
both women were laughing. When a few people near the
back of the crowd began to shout and clap their hands, Si-
mon looked up to see Deomoth returning. The knight led
a brown horse.

Simon stared. "Is it... ?" He leaped up, banging his
knee on the table, and hurried limping across the crowded
floor. "Homefinder!" he cried. He threw his arms around
the mare's neck; she, less overwhelmed than he, nosed
gently at his shoulder. "But I thought Binabik said she
was lost!"

"She was," said Deomoth, smiling. "When Binabik and
Sludig were trapped by the giants, they had to set the
horses free. One of our scouting parties found her near
the ruins of the Sithi city across the valley- Maybe she
sensed something of the Sithi still there and felt safe,
since you say she spent time among them."

Simon was chagrined to find himself weeping. He had
been certain that the mare was simply one more addition
to the list of friends and acquaintances lost in this terrible
year. Deomoth waited until he wiped his eyes, then said:

"I'll put her back with the other horses, Simon. I took her
away from her feed. You can see her in the morning."

"Thank you, Deomoth. Thank you." Simon stumbled
back to the high table.

As he settled in, accepting Binabik's congratulations,
Sangfugol rose at the prince's request. "We celebrate Si-
mon's knighthood, as Prince Josua has said." The harper
bowed toward the high table. "But he was not alone on
his journey, nor in his bravery and sacrifice. You also
know that the prince has named Binabik of Yiqanuc and
Sludig of Elvritshalla to be Protectors of the Realm of
Erkynland. But even there, the tale is not all told. Of the
six braves ones who set out, only three returned. I have
made this song, hoping that in later days they will none
of them be forgotten."

At a nod from Josua, he picked out a delicate succes-

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER

57

sion of notes on the harp which one of the new settlers
had crafted for him, then began to sing,

"In farthest north, where storm winds blow
And winter's teeth are fierce with rime,
Out of the deep eternal snows
Looms the mountain, cold Urmsheim.

At prince's call six men did ride
From out of threatened Erkynland,
Sludig, Grimmric, Binabik the troll,
Ethelbeam, Simon, and brave Haestan.

They sought Camaris' mighty sword
The black blade Thorn from old Nabban,
Splinter of fallen heaven-star
To save the prince's tortured land ..."

As Sangfugol played and sang, the whispering
stopped, and a hush fell over the gathering. Even Josua
watched, as though the song could make the triumph a
real one. The torches wavered. Simon drank more wine.

It was quite late. Only a few musicians were still
playing—Sangfugol had exchanged his harp for his lute,
and Binabik had brought out his flute late in the
proceedings—and the dancing had more or less degener-
ated into staggering and laughing. Simon himself had
drunk a great deal of wine and danced with two girls from
Gadrinsett, a pretty plump one and her thin friend. The
girls had whispered back and forth between themselves
almost the whole time, impressed by Simon, his youthful
beard and grand honors. They had also giggled uncontrol-
lably every time he tried to talk to them. At last, bewil-
dered and more than a little irritated, he had bid them
good night and kissed their hands, as knights were sup-
posed to do, which had occasioned more flumes of nerv-
ous laughter. They were really little more than children,
Simon decided.

Josua had seen Lady Vorzheva off to bed, then returned

58 Tad Williams

to preside over the final hour of the feast. He sat now,
talking quietly with Deomoth. Both men looked tired-

Jeremias was sleeping in a corner, determined not to go
to bed while Simon was still up, despite the fact that his
friend had the advantage of having slept until past noon.
Still, Simon was beginning to think seriously about lurch-
ing off to bed when Binabik appeared in the doorway of
Leavetaking House. Qantaqa stood beside him, sniffing
the air of the great hall with a mixture of interest and dis-
trust. Binabik left the wolf and came inside. He beckoned
to Simon, then made his way over to Josua's chair.

"... So they have made him a bed? Good." The prince
turned as Simon approached. "Binabik brings news. Wel-
come news."

The troll nodded. "I do not know this man, but Isom
seemed to think that his coming was an important thing.
Count Eolair, a Hemystirman," he explained to Simon,
"has just been brought across the water by one of the
fishermen, brought here to New Gadrinsett." He smiled at
the name, which still seemed clumsily new-minted. "He
is very tired now, but he is telling that he has important
news for us, which he will give us in the morning if the
prince is willing it."

"Of course." Josua stroked his chin thoughtfully. "Any
news of Hemystir is valuable, although I doubt that much
of Eolair's tale is happy."

"As it may be. However, Isorn was also saying,"
Binabik lowered his voice and leaned closer, "that Eolair
claims to have learned something important about," his
voice became quieter still, "the Great Swords."

"Ah!" muttered Deomoth, surprised.

Josua was silent for a moment. "So," he said at last.
"Tomorrow, on Saint Grams' Day, perhaps we shall leam
if our exile is one of hope or hopelessness." He rose and
turned his cup over, giving it a spin with his fingers.
"Bed, then. I will send for you all tomorrow, when Eolair
has had a chance to rest."

The prince walked away across the stone tiles. The
torches made his shadow jump along the walls.

"Bed, as the prince was saying," Binabik smiled.

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

59

Qantaqa pushed forward, thrusting her head beneath his
hand. "This will be a day for long remembering, Simon,
will it not?"

Simon could only nod.

2

Cfwins of Many Kinds

*

Princess Miriomete considered the ocean.

When she had been young, one of her nurses had told
her that the sea was the mother of mountains, that all the
land came from the sea and would return to it one day,
even as lost Khandia was reputed to have vanished into
the smothering depths. Certainly the ocean that had
beaten at the cliffs beneath her childhood home at
Meremund had seemed eager to reclaim the rocky verge.

Others had named the sea as mother of monsters, of
kilpa and kraken, oruks and water-wights. The black
depths, Miriamele knew, did indeed teem with strange
things. More than once some great, formless hulk had
washed up on Meremund's rocky beaches to lie rotting in
the sun beneath the fearful, fascinated eyes of the local
inhabitants until the tide rolled it away again into the
mysterious deeps. There was no doubt that the sea birthed
monsters.

And when Miriamele's own mother went away, never
to return, and her father Elias sank into brooding anger
over his wife's death, the ocean even became a kind of
parent to her. Despite its moods, as varied as the hours of
sunlight and moonlight, as capricious as the storms that
roiled its surface, the ocean had provided a constancy to
her childhood. The breakers had lulled her to sleep at
night, and she had awakened every morning to the sound
of gulls and the sight of tall sails in the harbor below her
father's castle, rippling like great-petaled flowers as she
stared down from her window.

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER                             6l

The ocean had been many things to her, and had meant
much. But until this moment, as she stood at the aft rail
of the Eadne Cloud with the whitecaps of the Great Green
stretching away on all sides, she had never realized that it
could also be a prison, a holdfast more inescapable than
anything built of stone and iron.

As Earl Aspitis' ship coursed southeast from Vinitta,
bound toward the Bay of Firannos and its scatter of is-
lands, Miriamele for the first time felt the ocean turn
against her, holding her more surely than ever her father's
court had bound her with ritual or her father's soldiers
had hemmed her all around in sharp steel. She had es-
caped those wardens, had she not? But how was she to es-
cape a hundred miles of empty sea? No, it was better to
give in. Miriamele was tired of fighting, tired of being
strong. Stone cliffs might stand proudly for ages, but they
fell to the ocean at last. Instead of resisting, she would do
better to float where the tides took her, like driftwood,
shaped by the action of the currents but moving, always
moving. Earl Aspitis wasn't a bad man. True, he did not
treat her with quite the same solicitude as he had a fort-
night ago, but still he spoke kindly—that is, when she did
as he wished. So she would do as he wished. She would
float like an abandoned spar, unresisting, until time and
events dropped her onto land again....

A hand touched the sleeve of her dress. She jumped,
surprised, and turned to find Gan Itai standing beside her.
The Niskie's intricately wrinkled face was impassive, but
her gold-flecked eyes, though sun-shaded, seemed to glit-
ter.

"I did not mean to startle you, girl," She moved up to
the rail beside Miriamele and together they stared out
over the restless water.

"When there's no land in sight," Miriamele said at last,
"you might as well be sailing off the edge of the world.
I mean, it seems as if there might not be any land any-
where."

The Niskie nodded. Her fine white hair fluttered
around her face. "Sometimes, at night, when I am up on

62 Tad Williams

the deck alone and singing, I feel as though I am crossing
the Ocean Indefinite and Eternal, the one my people
crossed to come to this land. They say that ocean was
black as tar, but the wave crests glowed like pearl."

As she spoke, Gan Itai extended her hand and clasped
Miriamele's palm. Startled and unsure of what to do, the
princess did not resist, but continued to stare out to sea.
A moment later the Niskie's long, leathery fingers pushed
something into her hand.

"The sea can be a lonely place." Gan Itai continued as
though unaware of what her own hand was doing. "Very
lonely. It is hard to find friends- It is hard to know who
can be trusted." The Niskie's hand dropped away, disap-
pearing back into the wide sleeves of her robe. "I hope
you will discover folk you can trust ... Lady Marya."
The pause before Miriamele's false name was unmistak-
able.

"So do I," said the princess, flustered.

"Ah." Gan Itai nodded. A smile tilted her thin mouth-
"You look a little pale. Perhaps the wind is too much for
you. Perhaps you should go to your cabin." The Niskie
inclined her head briefly, then walked away, bare brown
feet carrying her artfully across the rocking deck.

Miriamele watched her go, then looked up to the tiller
where Earl Aspitis stood talking to the steersman. The
earl lifted his arm to free himself from his golden cloak,
which the wind had wrapped about him. He saw
Miriamele and smiled briefly, then returned to his conver-
sation. Nothing about his smile was unusual, except per-
haps its perfunctory quality, but Miriamele suddenly felt
chilled to the heart. She clutched the curl of parchment in
her fist more tightly, fearful that the wind might pull it
loose from her grasp and send it fluttering right up to
Aspitis. She had no idea what it was, but somehow she
knew beyond doubt that she did not want him to see it.

Miriamele forced herself to walk slowly across the
deck, using her empty hand to clutch the rail. She was not
nearly so steady as Gan Itai had been.

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER                             63

In the dim cabin, Miriamele carefully uncurled the
parchment. She had to hold it up beside the candle flame
to read the tiny, crabbed letters.

/ have done many wrongs.
she read,

and I know you no longer trust me, but please be-
lieve that these words are honest. I have been
many people, none of them satisfactory. Padreic
was a fool, Cadrach a rogue. Perhaps I can be-
come something better before I die.

She wondered where he had gotten the parchment and
ink, and decided that the Niskie must have brought it to
liim. As she stared at the labored script, Miriamele
thought of the monk's weak arms weighted by chains.
She felt a stab of pity—what agony it must have been for
-lim to write this! But why could he not leave her alone?
Why could no one simply let her be?

If you are reading this, then Gan Itai has done
as she promised. She is the only one on this ship
you can trust ... except perhaps for me. I know
that I have cheated and deserted you. I am a
weak man, my lady, but in my warnings at least
I have served you well, and still try to do so. You
are not safe on board this ship. Earl Aspitis is
even worse than I guessed him to be. He is not
just a gilded creature of Duke Benigaris' court.
He is a servant of Pryrates.

I have told you many lies, my lady, and there
are also many truths that I have kept hidden, I
cannot set all to right here. My fingers are tired
already, my arms are sore. But I will tell you this:

there is no one alive who knows the evil of the
priest Pryrates better than I. There is no one
alive who bears more responsibility for that evil,
since I helped him become what he is.

64                    Tad Williams

It is a long and complicated tale. Enough to say
that I, to my eternal and horrible shame, gave
Pryrates the key to a door he should never have
opened. Worse, I did so even after I knew him for
the ravening beast he is. I gave in to him because
I was weak and frightened. It is the worst thing I
have ever done in a life of grievous errors.

Believe me in this, lady. To my sorrow, I know
our enemy well. I hope you will also believe me
when I say that Aspitis does not only the bidding
of his lord Benigaris, but the work of the red
priest as well. It was common knowledge in
Ymitta.

You must escape. Perhaps Can Itai can help
you. Sadly, I do not think you will ever again go
under such light guard as you did on Vinitta. My
cowardly attempt at flight will assure that. I know
not how or why, but I beg you to leave as soon as
you can. Flee to the inn called Pelippa's Bowl, in
Kwanitupul. I believe Dinivan has sent others
there, and perhaps they can help you escape to
your uncle Josua.

I must stop because I hurt. I will not ask you to
forgive me. I have earned no forgiveness.

A smear of blood had stained the edge of the parch-
ment. Miriamele stared at it, her eyes blurring with tears,
until someone knocked sharply on the door and her heart
erupted into frenzied pounding. She crumpled the note in
her palm even as the door swung open-

"My sweet lady," said grinning Aspitis, "why do you
hide yourself down here in the dark? Come, let us walk
on the deck."

The parchment seemed to burn her, as though she
clutched a smoldering coal.

"I ... I do not feel well, my lord." She shook her head,
trying to hide her shortness of breath. "I will walk an-
other time."

"Marya," the earl chided, "I told you that it was your
country openness that charmed me. What, are you becom-

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER

ing a moody court wench?" He reached her side in a long
step. His hand trailed across her neck. "Come, it is no
wonder you feel poorly, sitting in this dark room. You
need air." He leaned forward and brushed his lips below
her ear. "Or perhaps you prefer it here, in the dark. Per-
haps you are merely lonely?" His fingers dragged deli-
cately across her throat, soft as spiderwebs on her skin.

Miriamele stared at the candle. The flame danced
before her, but all around it was sunken deep in shadow.

A

The stained glass windows of the Hayholt's throne
room had been broken. Ragged curtains restrained the
flurrying snow, but did not keep out the freezing air. Even
Pryrates seemed to feel the cold: although he still went
bareheaded, the king's counselor was wearing red robes
lined with fur.

Alone of all the folk who came into the throne room,
the king and his cupbearer did not seem to mind the chill
air. Elias sat bare-armed and bare-footed on the
Dragonbone Chair; but for the great scabbarded sword
that hung from his belt, he was dressed as casually as if
he lounged in his private chambers. The monk Hengfisk,
the king's silent page, wore a threadbare habit and his
customary lunatic grin, and appeared no less comfortable
than his master in the frosty hall.

The High King slouched deep in the cage of dragon's
bones, chin on chest, peering out from beneath his eye-
brows at Pryrates. In contrast to the black malachite stat-
ues which stood on each side of the throne, Elias' skin
seemed white as milk. Blue veins showed at his temples
and along his wiry arms, bulging as though they might
burst through the flesh.

Pryrates opened his mouth as if to say something, then
Closed it again. His sigh was that of an Aedonite martyr
overwhelmed with the foolish wickedness of his persecu-
tors.

"Damn you, priest," Elias snarled, "my mind is made
up."

66 Tad Williams

The king's advisor said nothing, but only nodded; the
torchlight made his hairless skull gleam like a wet stone.
Despite the wind that fluttered the curtains, the room
seemed full of a curious stillness.

"Well?" The king's green eyes were dangerously
bright.

The priest sighed again, more softly. His voice, when
he spoke, was conciliatory. "I am your counselor, Elias. I
only do what you would wish me to: that is, help you de-
cide what is best."

"Then I think it best that Fengbald take soldiers and go
east. I want Josua and his band of traitors driven out of
their holes and crushed. I have delayed too long already
with this business of Guthwulf and with Benigaris' fum-
blings in Nabban. If Fengbald leaves now, he and his
troops will reach my brother's den in a month. You know
what kind of winter it will be, alchemist—you of all peo-
ple. If I wait any longer, the chance is lost." The king
pulled at his face irritably.

"As to the weather, there is little doubt," Pryrates said
equably. "I can only once again question the need to pur-
sue your brother. He is no threat. Even with an army of
thousands, he could not stop us before your glorious,
complete, and permanent victory is assured. There is only
a little while longer to wait."

The wind changed direction, making the banners that
hung from the ceiling ripple like pondwater. Elias
snapped his fingers and Hengfisk scuttled forward with
the king's cup. Elias drank, coughed, then drank again un-
til the goblet was empty. A bead of steaming black liquid
clung to his chin.

"That is simple for you to say," the king snarled when
he had finished swallowing. "Aedon's Blood, you have
said it often enough. But I have waited long already. I am
cursedly tired of waiting."

"But it will be worth the wait. Majesty. You know
that."

The king's face grew momentarily pensive. "And my
dreams, have been getting more and more strange,
Pryrates. More ... real."

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER                             67

"That is understandable." Pryrates lifted his long fin-
gers soothingly. "You bear a great burden—but all will
soon be made right. You will author a reign of splendor
unlike anything the world has seen, if you will only be
patient. These matters have their own timing—like war,
like love."

"Hah." Elias belched sourly, his irritation returning.
"Damned little you know of love, you eunuch bastard."
Pryrates flinched at this, and for a moment narrowed his
coal-black eyes to slits, but the king was gazing down
morosely at Sorrow and did not see. When he looked up
again, the priest's face was as blandly patient as before.
"So what is your payment for all this, alchemist? That
I've never understood."

"Besides the pleasure of serving you, Majesty?"

Elias' laugh was sharp and short, like a dog's bark.
"Yes, besides that."

Pryrates stared at him appraisingly for a moment. An
odd smile twisted his thin lips. "Power, of course. The
power to do what I want to do ... need to do."

The king's eyes had swung to the window. A raven had
alighted on the sill and now stood preening its oily black
feathers. "And what do you want to do, Pryrates?"

"Leam." For a moment the priest's careful mask of
statecraft seemed to slip; the face of a child showed
through—a horrible, greedy child. "I want to know every-
thing. For that I need power, which is a sort of permis-
sion. There are secrets so dark, so deep, that the only way
to discover them is to tear open the universe and root
about in the very guts of Death and Unbeing."

Elias lifted his hand and waved for his cup once more.
He continued to watch the raven, which hopped forward
on the sill and tilted its head to return the king's stare.
"You talk strangely, priest. Death? Unbeing? Are they not
the same?"

Pryrates grinned maliciously, although at what was not
clear. "Oh, no. Majesty. Not remotely."

Elias suddenly whirled in his chair, craning his head
around the yellowed, dagger-ranged skull of the dragon

68 Tad Williams

Shurakai. "Curse you, Hengfisk, did you not see me call
for my cup!? My throat is burning!"

The pop-eyed monk hurried to the king's side. Elias
carefully took the cup from him and set it down, then hit
Hengfisk on the side of his head so swiftly and power-
fully that the cupbearer was flung to the floor as if
lightning-struck. Elias then calmly drained the steaming
draught. Hengfisk lay boneless as a jellyfish for several
long moments then rose and retrieved the empty cup. His
idiot grin had not vanished; if anything, it had become
wider and more deranged, as though the king had done
him some great kindness. The monk bobbed his head and
backed into the shadows once more.

Elias paid him no attention. "So it is settled. Fengbald
will take the Erkynguard and a company of soldiers and
mercenaries and go east. He will bring me back my broth-
er's smirking, lecturing head on a lance." He paused, then
said thoughtfully: "Do you suppose that the Norns would
go with Fengbald? They are fierce fighters, and cold
weather and darkness are nothing to them."

Pryrates raised an eyebrow. "I think it unlikely, my
king. They do not seem to like to travel by day; neither
do they seem to enjoy the company of mortals."

"Not much use as allies, are they?" Elias frowned and
stroked Sorrow's hilt.

"Oh, they are valuable enough. Majesty." Pryrates nod-
ded his head, smiling. 'They will render service when we
truly need them. Their master—your greatest ally—will
see to that."

The raven blinked its golden eye, then uttered a harsh
noise and took wing. The tattered curtain fluttered where
it passed out through the window and into the stinging
wind-

A

"Please, may I hold him?" Maegwin extended her
arms-

With a worried look on her dust-smeared face, the
young mother handed the baby to her. Maegwin could not

TO GREEN ANOEL TOWER             69

help wondering if the woman was frightened of her—the
king's daughter, with her dark mourning clothes and
strange ways.

"I'm just so afraid he'll be wicked, my lady," said the
young woman. "He's been crying all day, till I nearly run
mad. He's hungry, poor little thing, but I don't want him

., screaming 'round you, Lady. You've more important

; things to think about."

Maegwin felt the chill that had touched her heart thaw
a little. "Never worry about that." She bounced the pink-

^ faced baby, who did seem to be on the brink of another

^ outburst. "Tell me his name, Caihwye."

^   The young woman looked up, startled. "You know me,

^ t^y9"

Maegwin smiled sadly. "We are not so very many, any
more. Far less than a thousand in these caverns all told.
No, there are not so many people in Free Hemystir that I
have trouble remembering them."

Caihwye nodded, wide-eyed. "It is terrible." She had
probably been pretty before the war, but now she had lost
teeth and was dreadfully thin. Maegwin was certain that
she had been giving most of what food she had to her
baby.

"The child's name?" Maegwin reminded her.

"Oh! Siadreth, my lady. It was his father's name."
Caihwye shook her head sadly; Maegwin did not ask after
the child's namesake. For most of the survivors, discus-
sions about fathers, husbands, and sons were sadly pre-
dictable. Most of the stories ended with the battle at the
Inniscrich.

"Princess Maegwin." Old Craobhan had been watching
silently until now. "We must go. There are more people
waiting for you."

She nodded. "You are right." Gently, she handed the
child back to his mother. The small pink face wrinkled,
preparing to shed tears. "He is very beautiful, Caihwye.
May all the gods bless him, and Mircha herself give him
good health. He will be a fine man."

Caihwye smiled and jiggled young Siadreth in her lap

70 Tad Williams

until he forgot what he had been about to do. "Thank you,
Lady. I'm so glad you came back well."

Maegwin, who had been turning away, paused- "Came
back?"

The young woman looked startled, frightened she'd
said something wrong. "From under the ground. Lady."
She pointed downward with her free hand. "From down
in the deeper caverns. It is you the gods must favor, to
bring you back from such a dark place."

Maegwin stared for a moment, then forced a smile, "I
suppose. Yes, I am glad to be back, too." She stroked the
baby's head once more before turning to follow
Craobhan.

"I know that judging disputes is not so enjoyable a task
for a woman as dandling babies," Old Craobhan said over
his shoulder, "but this is something you must do anyway.
You are Lluth's daughter."

Maegwin grimaced, but would not be distracted. "How
did that woman know I had been in the caverns below?"

The old man shrugged. "You didn't work very hard to
keep it secret, and you can't expect people not to be inter-
ested in the doings of the king's family. Tongues will al-
ways wag."

Maegwin frowned. Craobhan was right, of course. She
had been heedless and headstrong about exploring the
lower caverns- If she wanted secrecy, she should have
started worrying about it sooner.

"What do they think about it?" she asked at last. "The
people, I mean."

"Think about your adventuring?" He chuckled sourly.
"I imagine there's as many stories as there are cookfires.
Some say you went looking for the gods. Some think you
were looking for a bolt hole out of this whole muddle."
He peered at her over his bony shoulder. His self-
satisfied, knowing look made her want to smack him. "By
the middle of winter they'll be saying you found a city of
gold, or fought a dragon or a two-headed giant. Forget
about it. Stories are like hares—only a fool tries to run af-
ter one and catch it."

Maegwin glowered at the back of his old bald head.

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

71

She didn't know which she liked less, having people tell
lies about her or having people know the truth. She sud-
denly wished Eolair had returned.

Fickle cow. she sneered at herself.

But she did. She wished she could talk to him, tell him
of all her ideas, even the mad ones. He would understand,
wouldn't he? Or would it only confirm his belief in her
wretchedness? It mattered little, anyway: Eolair had been
gone for more than a month, and Maegwin did not even
know if he still lived. She herself had sent him away.
Now, she heartily wished that she had not.

Fearful but resolute, Maegwin had never softened the
cold words she had spoken to Count Eolair down in the
buried city of Mezutu'a. They had barely conversed dur-
ing the few days that passed between their return from
that place and his departure in search of Josua's rumored
rebel camp.

Eolair had spent most of those days down in the an-
cient city, overseeing a pair of stronghearted Hernystiri
clerks as they copied the dwarrows' stone maps onto
more portable rolls of sheepshide. Maegwin had not ac-
companied him; despite the dwarrows' kindness, the
thought of the empty, echoing city only filled her with
sullen disappointment. She had been wrong. Not mad, as
many thought her, but certainly wrong. She had thought
the gods meant her to find the Sithi there, but now it
seemed clear that the Sithi were lost and frightened and
would be no help to her people. As for the dwarrows, the
Sithi's once-servants, they were little more than shadows,
incapable of helping even themselves.

At Eolair's parting, Maegwin had been so full of war-
ring feelings that she could muster little more than a curt
farewell. He had pressed into her hand a gift sent by the
dwarrows—it was a glossy gray and white chunk of crys-
tal on which Yis-fidri, the record-keeper, had carved her
name in his own runic alphabet. It almost looked as
though it might be part of the Shard itself, but it lacked
that stone's restless inner light. Eolair had then turned and
mounted his horse, struggling to hide his anger. She had

72 Tad Williams

felt something tearing inside her as the Count of Nad
Mullach rode away down the slope and vanished into the
flurrying snow. Surely, she had prayed, the gods must
bear her up in this desperate time. The gods, though,
seemed slow to lend their aid these days.

Maegwin had thought at first that her dreams about an
underground city were signs of the gods' willingness to
help their stricken followers in Hernystir. Maegwin knew
now that somehow she had made a mistake. She had
thought to find the Sithi, the ancient and legendary allies,
to force her way in through the very gates of legend to
bring help to Hernystir—but that had been prideful fool-     \
ishness. The gods invited, they were not invaded.

Maegwin had been mistaken in that small thing, but     ^
still she knew that she was not altogether wrong. No mat-     ^
ter what misdeeds her people had done, the gods would     ^
not so easily desert them. Brynioch, Rhynn, Murhagh     f.
One-Arm—they would save their children, she was sure     S"
of it. Somehow, they would bring destruction to Skali and     ^
Elias the High King, the bestial pair who had brought
such humiliation on a proud and free people. If they did
not, then the world was an empty jest. So Maegwin would
wait for a better, clearer sign, and while she waited, she
would go quitely about her duties ... tending to her peo-
ple and mourning her dead.

"What suits do I hear today?" she asked Old Craobhan.
"Some small ones, as well as a request for judgment
that should prove no joy," Craobhan replied. "That one
comes from House Earb and House Lacha, which were
neighboring holdings on the Circoille fringe." The old
man had been king's counselor since Maegwin's grandfa-
ther's day, and knew the fantastical ins and outs of
Hernystiri political life the way a master smith knew the
vagaries of heat and metal. "Both families shared a sec-
tion of the woods as their vouchsafe," he explained,
"—the only time your father had to declare separate
rights to forest land and draw up a map of possession for
each, like the Aedonite kings do, just to keep Earb-men
and Lacha-men from slaughtering each other. They loathe

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER                             73

each other and the two houses have fought forever. They
barely took time to go to war against Skali, and they may
not have noticed that we lost." He coughed and spat.
"So what is wanted of me?"

Craobhan frowned. "What would you guess, Lady?
They quarrel now over cavern space—" his voice rose in
mockery, " '—this place is for me, this for thee. No, no,
it's mine; no, mine.' " He snorted. "They squabble like
piglets over the last teat, even as we all shelter together in
danger and poor conditions."

"They sound a disgusting group." Maegwin had little
temper for such petty nonsense.

"I couldn't have said fairer myself," the old man said-
Neither House Lacha nor House Earb benefited much
from Maegwin's presence. Their dispute proved just as
petty as Craobhan had predicted. A tunnel to the surface
had been dug out and widened to useful size by men from
both houses with the additional help of Hernystirmen
from other, less important families who shared the com-
mon cavern- Now each of the feuding houses insisted that
it alone was the tunnel's owner, and that the other house
and all other cavern-dwellers should pay a tithe of
goatsmilk for taking their flocks up and down the tunnel
each day.

Maegwin was mightily disgusted by this and said so.
She also proclaimed that if such rank nonsense as people
"owning" tunnels ever came up again, she would have the
remainder of Hemystir's fighting men gather up the male-
factors, take them to the surface, and throw them from the
highest cliffs that craggy Grianspog could provide.

Houses Lacha and Earb were not pleased by this judg-
ment. They managed to put aside their differences long
enough to demand that Maegwin be replaced as judge by
her stepmother Inahwen—who was after all, they said, the
late King LIuth's wife, and not merely his daughter.
Maegwin laughed and called them conniving fools. The
spectators who had gathered, along with the remaining
families that shared the cavern with the feuding houses,

74

Tad Williams

cheered Maegwin's good sense and the humbling of the
haughty Earb- and Lacha-folk.

The rest of the suits went quickly. Maegwin found her-
self enjoying the work, although some of the disputes
were sad. It was something she did well—something that
had little to do with being small or delicate or pretty. Sur-
rounded by lovelier, more graceful women, she had al-
ways felt herself an embarrassment to her father, even at
a rustic court like the Taig. Here, all that mattered was
her good sense- In the past weeks, she had found—to her
surprise—that her father's subjects valued her, that they
were grateful for her willingness to listen and be fair. As
she watched her people, tattered and smoke-smudged, she
felt her heart tighten within her. The Hemystiri deserved
better than this low estate. They would get it, somehow,
if it was within Maegwin's power.

For a while, she managed to forgot almost entirely
about her cruelty to the Count of Nad Mullach.

That evening, as she lay on the edge of sleep, Maegwin
found herself abruptly falling forward into a darkness
vaster and deeper than the ember-lit cavern where she
made her bed. For a moment she thought some cataclysm
had torn open the earth beneath her; a moment later, she
was certain that she dreamed. But as she felt herself
slowly spinning into emptiness, the sensation seemed far
too immediate for a dream, and yet too strangely dislo-
cated to be anything so real as an earth tremor. She had
felt something like this before, those nights when she had
dreamed of the beautiful city beneath the earth....

Even as her confused thoughts fluttered in darkness
like startled bats, a cloud of dim lights began to appear.
They were fireflies, or sparks, or distant torches. They
spiraled upward, like the smoke of a great bonfire,
mounting toward some unimaginable height.

Climb, said a voice in her head. Go to the High Place.
The time is come.

Swimming in nothingness, Maegwin struggled toward
the distant peak where the flickering lights congregated.

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

75

Go to the High Place, the voice demanded. The time is
come.

And suddenly she was in the midst of many gleaming
lights, small and intense as distant stars. A hazy throng
surrounded her, beautiful yet inhuman, dressed in all the
colors of the rainbow. The creatures stared at each other
with gleaming eyes. Their graceful forms were vague; al-
though they were man-shaped, she somehow felt sure
they were no more human than rain clouds or spotted
deer.

The time is come, said the voice, now many voices- A
smear of leaping, coruscating light glowed in the midst of
them, as though one of the stars had fallen down from the
vaulting sky. Go to the High Place....

And then the fantastic vision was bleeding away, drain-
ing back into darkness.

Maegwin woke to discover herself sitting upright on
her pallet. The fires were only glowing coals. There was
nothing to be seen in the darkened cavern, and nothing to
hear but the sound of other people breathing in sleep. She
was clutching Yis-fidri's dwarrow-stone so tightly that
her knuckles throbbed with J>ain. For a moment she
thought a faint light gleamed in its depths, but when she
looked again she decided she had fooled herself: it was
only a translucent lump of rock. She shook her head
slowly. The stone was of no importance, anyway, com-
pared to what she had experienced.

The gods. The gods had spoken to her again, even more
plainly this time. The high place, they had said. The time
had come. That must mean that at last the lords of her
people were ready to reach out and aid Hemystir. And
they wanted Maegwin to do something. They must, or
they would not have touched her, would not have sent her
this clear sign.

The small matters of the day just passed were now
swept from her mind. The high place, she told herself.
She sat for a long time in the darkness, thinking.

«

76

Tad Williams

After checking carefully to make sure that Earl Aspitis
was still up on deck, Miriamele hurried down the narrow
passageway and rapped on the low door. A murmuring
voice inside fell silent at the sound of Miriamele's knock.

The reply came some moments later. "Yes? Who is
there?"

"Lady Marya. May I come in?"

"Come."

Miriamele pushed against the swollen door. It gave
grudgingly, opening on a tiny, austere room. Gan Itai sat
on a pallet beneath the open window, which was little
more than a narrow slit near the top of the wall. Some-
thing moved there; Miriamele saw a smooth expanse of
white neck and a flash of yellow eye, then the seagull
dropped away and vanished.

"The gulls are like children." Gan Itai showed her
guest a wrinkled smile. "Argumentative, forgetful, but
sweet-hearted."

Miriamele shook her head, confused. "I'm sorry to
bother you."

"Bother? Child, what a foolish idea. It is daylight, 1
have no singing to do for now. Why would you be a
bother?"

"I don't know, I just .. -" Miriamele paused, trying to
collect her thoughts. She wasn't really certain why she
had come. "I ... I need someone to talk to, Gan Itai. I'm
frightened."

The Niskie reached over to a three-legged stool which
appeared to serve as a table. Her nimble brown fingers
swept several sea-polished stones off the seat and into the
pocket of her robe, then she pushed the stool over to
Miriamele.

"Sit, child. Do not hurry yourself."

Miriamele arranged her skirt, wondering how much she
dared to tell the Niskie. But if Gan Itai was carrying se-
cret messages for Cadrach, how much could there be that
she still did not know? She had certainly seemed to know
that Marya was a false name. There was nothing to do but
roll the dice.

"Do you know who I am?"

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER

77

The sea-watcher smiled again. "You are Lady Marya, a
noblewoman from Erkynland."

Miriamele was startled. "I am?"

The Niskie's laugh hissed like wind through dry grass.
"Are you not? You have certainly told enough people that
name. But if you mean to ask Gan Itai who you truly are,
I will tell you, or at least I will start with this: Miriamele
is your name, daughter of the High King."

Miriamele was curiously relieved. "So you do know."

"Your companion Cadrach confirmed it for me. I had
suspicions. I met your father, once. You smell like him;

sound like him, too."

"I do? You did?" Miriamele felt as though she had lost
her balance. "What do you mean?"

"Your father met Benigaris here on this boat two years
gone, when Benigaris was only the duke's son. Aspitis,
Eadne Cloud's master, hosted the gathering. That strange
wizard-creature was here, too—the one with no hair."
Gan Itai made a smoothing gesture across her head.

"Pryrates." The name's evil taste lingered in her
mouth.

"Yes, that is the one." Gan Itai sat up straighter, cock-
ing her ear to some far-away sound. After a moment she
turned her attention back to her guest. "I do not learn the
names of all the folk who ride this boat. I do pay sharp at-
tention to everyone who treads the gangplank, of
course—that is part of the Navigator's Trust—but names
are not usually important to sea-watchers. That time,
though, Aspitis told me all their names, as my children
used to sing to me their lessons about the tides and cur-
rents. He was very proud of his important guests."

Miriamele was momentarily distracted. "Your chil-
dren?"

"By the Uncharted, yes, certainly!" Gan Itai nodded. "I
am a great-grandmother twenty times over."

"I've never seen Niskie children."

The old woman looked at her dourly. "I know you are
a southerner only by birth, child, but even in Meremund
where you grew up there is a small Niskie town near the
docks. Did you never go there?"

78

Tad Williams

Miriamele shook her head. "I wasn't allowed."
Gan Itai pursed her lips. "That is unhappy. You should
have gone to see it. We are fewer now than we once were,
and who knows what will come on tomorrow's tide? My
family is one of the largest, but there are fewer than ten
score families all together from Abaingeat on the north
coast all the way down to Naraxi and Harcha. So few for
all the deep-water ships'" She shook her head sadly.

"But when my father and those others were here, what
did they say? What did they do?"

"They talked, young one, but about what I cannot say.
They talked the night away, but I was on deck, with the
sea and my songs. Besides, it is not my place to spy on
the ship's owner. Unless he wrongly endangers the ship,
it is not my place to do anything at all except that which
I was born for: to sing the kilpa down."

"But you brought me Cadrach's letter." Miriamele
looked around to make sure the passageway door was
closed. "That is not something Aspitis would want you to
do."

For the first time, Gan Itai's golden eyes showed a
trace of discontent. "That is true, but I was not harming
the ship." A look of defiance crept onto the lined face.
"We are Niskies, after all, not slaves. We are a free peo-
ple."

She and Miriamele looked at each other for a moment.
The princess was the first to look away. "I don't even
care what they were talking about, anyway. I'm sick and
tired of men and their wars and arguments. I just want to
go away and be left alone—to climb into a hole some-
where and never come out."

The Niskie did not reply, only watched her.

"Still, I will never escape across fifty leagues of open
water." The uselessness of it all pulled at her, making her
feel heavy with despair. "Will we make land anytime

soon?"

"We will stop at some of the islands in Firannos Bay.
Spenit, perhaps Risa—I am not sure which ones Aspitis
has chosen."

"Maybe I can escape somehow. But I'm sure I will be

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

79

heavily guarded." The leaden feeling seemed to grow
stronger. Then an idea flickered. "Do you ever get off the
ship, Gan Itai?"

The sea-watcher looked at her appraisingly. "Seldom.
But there is a family of Tinukeda'ya—of Niskies—at
Risa. The Injar clan. Once or twice I have visited them.
Why do you ask?"

"Because if you can leave the ship, you could take a
message for me. Give it to someone who might get it to
my Uncle Josua."

Gan Itai frowned. "Certainly I will do it, but I am not
sure that it will ever get to him. It would be a piece of
long luck."

"What choice do I have?" Miriamele sighed. "Of
course it's foolish. But maybe it would help, and what
else can I do?" Tears abruptly welled in her eyes. She
wiped them away angrily. "No ,one will be able to do any-
thing, even if they want to. But I have to try."

Gan Itai stared in alarm. "Do not cry, child. It makes
me feel cruel for having dragged you out of your hiding
place in the hold."

Miriamele waved a tear-dampened hand. "Someone
would have found us."

The Niskie leaned forward. "Perhaps your companion
would have some idea of who to give your note to, or
some special thing that could be written in it. He seems
to me a wise man."

"Cadrach?"

"Yes. After all, he knew the true name of the Naviga-
tor's Children." Her voice was grave but proud, as though
knowing her people's name was evidence of godlike wis-
dom.

"But how ..." Miriamele bit off the rest of her ques-
tion. Of course Gan Itai knew how to get to Cadrach. She
had already brought a note from him. But Miriamele was
not quite sure that she wanted to see the monk. He had
caused her so much pain, sparked so much anger.

"Come." Gan Itai rose from the pallet, climbing to her
feet as easily as a young girl. "I will take you to him."
She squinted out the narrow window. "They will not

8o Tad Williams

bring him food for almost another hour. That will leave
plenty of time for a pleasant conversation." She grinned,
then moved quickly across the small room. "Can you
climb in that dress?"

The Niskie slid her fingers in behind a board on the
bare wall and pulled. A panel, so closely fitted that it had
been all but invisible, came free; Gan Itai set it down on
the floor. A dark hole lined with pitch-smeared beams
showed where the panel had been.

"Where does it lead?" Miriamele asked, surprised.

"Nowhere, particularly," Gan Itai said. She clambered
through and stood up, so that only her thin brown legs
and the hem of her robe showed in the opening. "It is
merely a way to get quickly to the hold or the deck. A
Niskie-hole, as it is called." Her muffled voice had a
slight echo.

Miriamele leaned in behind her. A ladder stood against
the far wall of the tiny cubicle. At the top of the confining
walls, a narrow crawlspace extended in both directions.
The princess shrugged and followed the Niskie up the
ladder.

The passageway at the top was too low to be negotiated
except on hands and knees, so Miriamele knotted the end
of her skirt up out of her way, then crawled after Gan Itai.
As the light of the Niskie's room disappeared behind
them, the darkness pulled in closer, so that Miriamele
could only follow her nose and the quiet sound of Gan
Itai crawling. The beams creaked as the ship flexed.
Miriamele felt as though she were creeping down the gul-
let of some great sea beast.

Some twenty cubits from the ladder, Gan Itai stopped.
Miriamele bumped into her from behind.

"Careful, child." The Niskie's face was revealed in a
growing wedge of light as she pried up another panel.
When Gan Itai had peered through, she beckoned
Miriamele forward. After the darkness of the crawlspace,
the dim hold seemed a cheerful, sunlit place, though all
that lit it was a propped hatchway at the far end.

"We must keep our voices low," the sea-watcher said.

The hold was stacked nearly to the rafters with sacks

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

8l

and barrels, all tied down so they would not roll free in
high seas. Against one wall, as though he, too, were re-
strained against capricious tides, was the huddled figure
of the monk. A heavy length of chain was at his ankles;

another depended from his wrists.

"Learned one!" called the Niskie. Cadrach's round
head came up slowly, like a beaten dog's. He stared up
into the shadowed rafters.

"Gan Itai?" His voice was hoarse and weary. "Is that
you?"

Miriamele felt her heart plummet in her breast.
Mercieful Aedon, look at him! Chained like a poor dumb
brute!

"I have come to talk to you," the Niskie whispered.
"Are the warders coming soon?"

Cadrach shook his head. His chains rattled quietly. "I
think not. They never hurry to feed me. Did you give my
note to ... to the lady?"

"I did. She is here to talk to you."

The monk started as if frightened. "What? You brought
her here?" He lifted his clanking shackles before his face.
"No! No! Take her away!"

Gan Itai pulled Miriamele forward. "He is very un-
happy. Speak to him."

Miriamele swallowed. "Cadrach?" she said at last.
"Have they hurt you?"

The monk slid down the wall, becoming little more
than a heap of shadows. "Go away. Lady. I cannot bear to
see you, or to have you see me. Go away."

There was a long moment of silence. "Speak to him!"
Gan Itai hissed.

"I am sorry they have done this to you." She felt tears
coming. "Whatever has happened between us, I would
never have wished to see you tormented this way."

"Ah, Lady, what a dreadful world this is." The monk's
voice had a sobbing catch to it. "Will you not take my ad-
vice and flee? Please."

Miriamele shook her head in frustration, then realized
he could not see her up in the shadow of the hatchway.
"How, Cadrach? Aspitis will not let me out of his sight.

82 Tad Williams

Gan Itai said she would take away a letter from me and
try to get it to someone who will deliver it—but deliver
it to whom? Who would help me? I do not know where
Josua is. My motor's family in Nabban have turned trai-
tor. What can I do?"

The dark shape that was Cadrach slowly stood up.
"Pelippa's Bowl, Miriamele. As I told you in my letter.
There may be someone there who can help." He did not
sound very convinced.

"Who? Who could I send it to?"

"Send it to the inn. Draw a quill pen on it, a quill in a
circle. That will get it to someone who can help, if any-
one useful is there." He lifted a weighted arm. "Please go
away. Princess. After all that has happened, I want only to
be left alone. I do not wish to have you see my shame any

longer."

Miriamele felt her tears overspill her eyes. It took a
few moments before she could talk. "Do you want any-
thing?"

"A jug of wine. No, a wineskin: it will be easier to
hide. That's all I need. Something to make a darkness
within me to match the darkness around me." His laugh-
ter was painful to hear. "And you safely escaped. That,
too."

Miriamele turned her face away. She could not bear to
look at the monk's huddled form any longer. "I'm so
sorry," she said, then hurriedly pushed past Can Itai and
retreated a few cubits up the crawlspace. The conversa-
tion had made her feel ill.

The Niskie said some last words to Cadrach, then
lowered the panel and plunged the tiny passageway into
darkness once more- Her thin form pushed past, then she
led Miriamele back to the ladder.

The princess was no sooner back into daylight when a
fresh bout of sobbing came over her. Gan Itai watched
uncomfortably for a while, but when Miriamele could not
stop crying, the Niskie put a spidery arm around her.

"Stop, now, stop," she crooned. "You will be happy

again."

Miriamele untied her skirt, then lifted the comer and

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER                             83

wiped her eyes and nose. "No I won't. Nor will Cadrach.
Oh, God in Heaven, I am so lonely!" Another storm of
weeping came over her.

Gan Itai held her until she stopped crying.

"It is cruel to bind any creature that way." The Niskie's
voice was tight with something like anger. Miriamele, her
head in Gan Itai's lap, was too drained to reply. "They
bound Ruyan Ve, did you know? The father of our peo-
ple, the great Navigator. When he would have taken the
ships and set sail once more, they seized him in their an-
ger and bound him in chains." The Niskie rocked back
and forth. "And then they burned the ships."

Miriamele sniffled. She did not know who Gan Itai was
talking about, nor did she care at this moment.

"They wanted us to be slaves, but we Tinukeda'ya are
a free people." Gan Itai's voice became almost a chant, a
sorrowful song. "They burned our ships—burned the
great ships that we could never build again in this new
land, and left us stranded here. They said it was to save
us from Unbeing, but that was a lie. They only wanted us
to share their exile—we, who did not need them! The
Ocean Indefinite and Eternal could have been our home,
but they took our ships away'and bound mighty Ruyan.
They wanted us to be their servants. It is wrong to put
anyone in chains who has done you no harm. Wrong."

Gan Itai continued to hold Miriamele in her arms as
she rocked back and forth and murmured of terrible injus-
tices. The sun fell lower in the sky. The small room began
to fill with shadow.

Miriamele lay in her darkened cabin and listened to the
Niskie's faint song. Gan Itai had been very upset.
Miriamele had not thought the sea-watcher held such
strong feelings, but something about Cadrach's captivity
and the princess' own tears had brought up a great out-
pouring of grief and anger.

Who were the Niskies, anyway? Cadrach called them
Tinukeda'ya—Ocean Children, Gan Itai had said. Where
did they come from? Some distant island, perhaps. Ships
on a dark ocean, the Niskie had said, from somewhere far

84

Tad Williams

away. Was that the way of the world, that everyone
longed to go back to some place or some time that was
lost?

Her thoughts were interrupted by a knock at the
door.

"Lady Marya? Are you awake?"

She did not answer. The door slowly swung open.
Miriamele cursed herself inwardly: she should have
bolted it.

"Lady Marya?" The earl's voice was soft. "Are you ill?
I missed you at supper."

She stirred and rubbed her eyes, as if awakening from
sleep. "Lord Aspitis? I'm sorry, I am not feeling well. We
will talk tomorrow, if I feel better."

He came on cat-soft feet and sat down on the edge of
her bed. His long fingers traced her cheek, "But this is
terrible. What ails you? I shall have Gan Itai look to you.
She is well-versed in healing; I would trust her past any
leech or apothecary."

"Thank you, Aspitis. That would be kind. Now I
should probably go back to sleep. I'm sorry to be such
poor company."

The earl seemed in no hurry to leave. He stroked her
hair. "You know. Lady, I am truly sorry for my rough
words and ways of the other evening. I have come to care
deeply for you, and I was upset at the idea that you might
leave me so soon. After all, we share a deep lovers' bond,
do we not?" His fingertips slid down to her neck, making
the skin tighten and sending a chill through her.

"I fear I am not in good condition to talk about such
things now, Lord. But I forgive you your words, which I
know were hasty and not heartfelt." She turned her eyes
to his face for a moment, trying to judge his thoughts. His
eyes seemed guileless, but she remembered Cadrach's
words, as well as Gan ItaTs description of the gathering
he had hosted, and the chill returned, bringing a tremor
that she was hard-pressed to conceal.

"Good," he said. "Very good. I am glad you understand
that. Hasty words. Exactly."

Miriamele decided to test that courtier's sincerity of

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER                             85

his. "But of course, Aspitis, you must understand my own
unhappiness. My father, you see, does not know where I
am. Perhaps already the convent will have sent word to
him that I did not arrive. He will be sick with worry. He
is old, Aspitis, and I fear for his health. You can see why
I feel I must forsake your hospitality, whether I wish to or
not."

"Of course," said the earl. Miriamele felt a flicker of
hope. Could she have misread him after all? "It is cruel to
let your father worry. We will send him word as soon as
we next make landfall—on Spenit Island, I think. And we
will give him the good news."

She smiled. "He will be very happy to hear I am well."

"Ah." Aspitis returned her smile. His long, fine jaw and
clear eyes could have served as a sculptor's model for one
of the great heroes of the past. "But there will be more
good news than just that. We will tell him that his daughter
is to marry one into of Nabban's Fifty Families!"

Miriamele's smile faltered. "What?"

"Why, we will tell him of our coming marriage!"
Aspitis laughed with delight. "Yes, Lady, I have thought
and thought, and although your-family is not quite so el-
evated as mine—and Erkynlandish, as well—I have de-
cided for love's sake to spit in the face of tradition- We
will be married when we return to Nabban." He took her
cold hand in his warm grip. "But you do not look as
happy as I would have hoped, beautiful Marya."

Miriamele's mind was racing, but as in a dream of fear-
ful pursuit, she could think of nothing but escape. "I ...
I am overwhelmed, Aspitis-"

"Ah, well, I suppose that is understandable." He stood,
then bent over to kiss her. His breath smelled of wine, his
cheek of perfume. His mouth was hard against hers for a
moment before he pulled away. "After all, it is rather sud-
den, I know. But it would be worse than ungentlemanly of
me to desert you ... after all we have shared. And I have
come to love you, Marya. The flowers of the north are
different than those of my southern home, but their scent
is just as sweet, the blossoms just as beautiful."

86

Tad Williams

He stopped in the doorway. "Rest and sleep well. Lady.
We have much to talk about. Good night." The door fell
shut behind him. Miriamele immediately leaped from her
bed and drove home the bolt, then crawled back under her
blanket, overcome by a fit of shivering.

3

East of the World

*

"I'm a kmght now, aren't I?" Simon ran his hand
through the tnick fur of Qantaqa's neck. The wolf eyed
him impassively.

Binabik looked up from his sheaf of parchment and
nodded. "By an oath to your god and your prince." The
troll turned back to Morgenes' book once more. "That is
seeming to me to fit the knightly particulars."

Simon stared across the tiled expanse of the Fire Gar-
den, trying to think of how to put his thought into words.
"But ... but I don't feel any different. I'm a knight—a
man! So why do I feel like the same person?"

Caught up in something he was reading, Binabik took
a moment to respond. "I am sorry, Simon," he said at last.
"I am not being a good friend for listening. Please say
what you were saying once more."

Simon bent and picked up a piece of loose stone, then
flung it skittering across the tiles and into the surrounding
undergrowth. Qantaqa bounded after it. "If I'm a knight
and a grown man, why do I feel like the same stupid scul-
lion?"

Binabik smiled. "It is not only you who has ever had
such feelings, friend Simon. Because a new season has
passed, or because a recognition has been given, still it is
not changing a person very much on the inside. You were
made Josua's knight because of bravery you showed on
Urmsheim. If you were changing, it was not at (he cere-
mony yesterday, but on the mountain that it was happen-
ing." He patted Simon's booted foot. "Did you not say

88 Tad Williams

that you had learned something there, and also from the
spilling of the dragon's blood?"

"Yes." Simon squinted at Qantaqa's tail, which waved
above the heather like a puff of smoke.

"People, both trolls and lowtanders, are growing in
their own time," said the little man, "—not when some-
one says that it is so. Be content. You will always be ex-
tremely Simon-like, but still I have been seeing much
change in the months we have been friends."

"Really?" Simon paused in mid-toss.

"Truth. You are becoming a man, Simon. Let it happen
at the swiftness that it needs, and do not be worrying
yourself." He rattled the papers. "Listen, I want to read
something to you." He ran a stubby finger along the lines
of Morgenes' spidery handwriting. "I am grateful beyond
telling to Strangyeard, that he brought this book out of the
ruin of Naglimund. It is our last tie to that great man,
your teacher." His finger paused. "Ah. Here. Morgenes
writes of King Prester John;

".. . If he was touched by divinity, it was most ev-
ident in his comings and goings, in his finding
the correct place to be at the most suitable time,
and profiting thereby ..."

"I read that part," Simon said with mild interest.
"Then you will have noticed its significantness for our
efforts," the troll replied.

"For John Presbyter knew that in both war and
diplomacy—as also with love and commerce, two
other not dissimilar occupations—the rewards
usually do not fall to the strong or to even the
just, but rather to the lucky. John also knew that
he who moves swiftly and without undue caution
makes his own luck."

Simon frowned at Binabik's pleased expression. "So?"
"Ah." The troll was imperturbable. "Listen further."

TO   GREEN   ANOEL   TOWER                             89

"Thus, in the war that brought Nabban under his
imperial hand, John took his far-outnumbered
troop through the f)nestrine Pass and directly
into the spear-points of Ardrivis' legions, when
all knew that only a fool would do so. It was this
very foolhardiness, this seeming madness, that
gave John's smaller force a great advantage of
surprise—and even, to the startled Nabbanai
army, an aura of God-touched irresistibility."

Simon found the note of triumph in the little man's
voice faintly disquieting. Binabik seemed to think that
the point was somehow very clear. Simon frowned, think-
ing.

"Are you saying that we should be like King John?
That we should try to catch Elias by surprise?" It was an
astonishing idea. 'That we should ... attack him?"

Binabik nodded, his teeth bared in a yellow smile.
"Clever Simon! Why not? We have only been reacting,
not acting. Perhaps a change will be helpful."

"But what about the Storm King?" Shaken by the
thought, he looked out at the beclouded horizon, Simon
did not even like to say that name beneath the wide slate
sky in this alien place. "And besides, Binabik, we are
only a few hundred. King Elias has thousands of soldiers.
Everybody knows it!"

The troll shrugged. "Who says we must be fighting
army to army? In any case, our little company is growing
every day, as more folk come across the meadows to ...
what was Josua's naming? Ah. New Gadrinsett."

Simon shook his head and flung another shard of wind-
smoothed stone. "It seems stupid to me—no, not stupid.
But too dangerous."

Binabik was not upset. He whistled for Qantaqa,
who came trotting back across the stone flags. "Perhaps
it is being just that, Simon. Let us walk for a little
while."

A

Tad Williams

Prince Josua stared down at the sword, his face trou-
bled. The good cheer he had shown at Simon's feast
seemed entirely gone.

It was not that the prince was truly any happier of late,
Sir Deornoth decided, but he had learned that his self-
doubts made those around him uneasy. In times like these,
people preferred a fearless prince to an honest one, so
Josua labored to present a mask of calm optimism to his
subjects. But Deomoth, who knew him well, had little
doubt that Josua's responsibilities still weighed on him as
heavily as they ever had.

He is like my mother, Deornoth realized, A strange
thing to think of a prince. But like her, he feels he must
take the worries and fears of all onto himself, that no one
else can bear the burden.

And, as Deomoth had seen his mother do, Josua also
seemed to be aging faster than those around him. Always
slender, the prince had become very thin during the com-
pany's flight from Naglimund. He had regained a little of
his girth, but there was a strange aura of fragility about
him now that would not go away: Deomoth thought him
a little unworldly, like a man just risen from a long ill-
ness. The gray streaks in his hair had increased drastically
and his eyes, although still as sharp and knowing as ever,
held a slightly feverish gleam.

He needs peace. He needs rest. I wish I could stand at
the foot of his bed and protect him while he slept for a
year. "God give him strength," he murmured.

Josua turned to look at him. "I'm sorry, my mind was
wandering. What did you say?"

Deomoth shook his head, not wishing to lie, but not
caring to share his thoughts either- They both turned their
attention back to the sword.

Prince and liege-man stood before the long stone table
in the building Geloe had named Leavetaking House. All
traces of the previous night's feast had been cleared away,
and now only one gleaming black object lay upon the

smooth stone.

"To think that so many have died at the end of that
blade," Deornoth said at last. He touched the cord-

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

91

wrapped hilt; Thorn was as cold and lifeless as the rock
on which it rested.

"And more recently," the prince murmured, "think of
how many have died that we might have it."

"But surely, if it cost us so dearly, we should not just
leave it lying here in an open hall where anyone may
come." Deomoth shook his head. "This might be our
greatest hope. Highness—our only hope! Should we not
hide it away safe, or put it under guard?"

Josua almost smiled. "To what purpose, Deornoth?
Any treasure can be stolen, any castle thrown down, any
hiding place nosed out. Better it should lie where all can
see and feel what hope is in it." He narrowed his eyes as
he stared down at the blade. "Not that I feel much hope
looking at it. I trust you will not think me any the less
princely if I say it gives me a kind of chill." He slowly
ran his hand down the length of the blade. "In any case,
from what Binabik and young Simon have said, no one
will take this sword where it does not wish to go. Besides,
if it lies here in view of all, like Tethtain's ax in the heart
of the fabled beech tree, perhaps someone will come for-
ward to tell us how it may serve."

Deomoth was puzzled. "You mean one of the common
people. Highness?"

I  The prince grunted. "There are all kinds of wisdom,
i Deomoth. If we had listened sooner to the common folk
'living on the Frostmarch when they told us that evil was
abroad in the land, who knows what anguish we might
;1have been spared? No, Deomoth, any word of wisdom
^about this sword is valuable to us now, any old song, any
, half-remembered story." Josua could not hide his look of
^discontent. "After all, we have no idea of what good it
|can do us—in fact, no idea that it will do good at all, but
;'for an obscure and ancient rhyme...."
A harsh voice sang out, interrupting him.

"When frost doth grow on Cloves' bell
And shadows walk upon the wad
When water blackens in the Well
Three Swords must come again."

92 Tad Williams

The two men turned in surprise. Geloe stood at the
doorway. She continued the rhyme as she walked toward
them.

"When Bukken from the Earth do creep
And Hunen from the heights descend
When Nightmare throttles peaceful Sleep
Three Swords must come again.

"To turn the stride of treading Fate
To clear the fogging Mists of lime
If Early shall resist Too Late
Three Swords must come again.

"I could not help hearing you. Prince Josua—I have
keen ears. Your words are very wise. But as to doubting
whether the sword will help ..." She grimaced. "Forgive
an old forest woman for her bluntness, but if we do not
believe in the potency of Nisses' prophecy, what else do
we have?"

Josua tried to smile. "I was not disputing that it means
something significant to us, Valada Geloe- I only wish I
knew more clearly what kind of a weapon these swords
will be."

"As do we all." The witch woman nodded to Deomoth,
then flicked a glance at the black sword. "Still, we have
one of the three Great Swords, and that is more than we
had a season ago."

"True. Very true." Josua leaned back against the stone
table. "And we are in a safe place, thanks to you. I have
not grown blind to good fortune, Geloe."

"But you are worried." It was not a question. "It is be-
coming harder to feed our growing settlement, and harder
to govern those who live here."

The prince nodded. "Many of whom are not even sure
why they are here, except that they followed other set-
tlers. After such a freezing summer, I do not know how
we will survive the winter."

"The people will listen to you. Highness," said
Deomoth. When the witch woman was present, Josua

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER

93

seemed more like a careful student than a prince. He had
never learned to like it, and had only partially learned to
hide his annoyance. "They will do what you say. We will
survive the winter together."

"Of course, Deomoth." Josua laid his hand upon his
friend's shoulder. "We have come through too much to be
balked by the petty problems of today."

He looked as if he would say more, but at that moment
they heard the sound of footsteps on the wide stairs out-
side. Young Simon and the troll appeared in the doorway,
followed closely by Binabik's tame wolf. The great beast
sniffed the air, then snuffled at the stone on all sides of
the door as well before trotting off to lie down in a far
comer of the hall. Deomoth watched her go with some re-
lief. He had seen numerous proofs of her harmlessness,
but he had been raised a child of the Erkynlahdish coun-
tryside, where wolves were the demons of fireplace tales.

"Ah," Josua said cheerfully, "my newest knight, and
with him the honored envoy from far Yiqanuc. Come, sit
down." He pointed to a row of stools left from the previ-
ous evening's festivities. "We wait on only a few more,
including Count Eolair." The prince turned to Geloe.
"You saw to him, did you not?'Is he well?"

"A few cuts and bruises. He is thin, too—he has ridden
far with little food. But his health is good."

Deomoth thought she would not say much more if the
Count of Nad Mullach had been drawn and quartered—
but still would have him on his feet again soon. The witch
woman did not show his prince proper respect, and had
few traits that Deomoth considered womanly, but he had
to admit that she was very good at the things she did.

"I am happy to hear it." Josua tucked his hand under
his cloak. "It is cold here. Let us make a fire so we can
speak without our teeth chattering."

As Josua and the others talked, Simon fetched pieces of
wood from the pile in the comer and stacked them in the
firepit, happy to have something to do. He was proud to
be part of this high company, but not quite able to take
his membership for granted.

94

Tad Williams

"Stand them touching at the top, spread at the bottom,"
Geloe advised.

He did as she suggested, making a conical tent of fire-
wood in the middle of the ashes. When he had finished,
he looked around. The crude firepit seemed out of place
on the finely-crafted stone floor, as though animals had
taken up residence in one of the great houses of Simon's
own kind. There seemed no Sithi-built equivalent of the
pit anywhere in the long chamber. How had they kept the
room heated? Simon remembered Aditu running barefoot
on the snow and decided that they might not have both-
ered.

"Is Leavetaking House really the name of this place?"
he asked Geloe as she came forward with her flint and
steel. She ignored him for a moment as she squatted be-
side the firepit, putting a spark to the curls of bark that
lay around the logs.

"It is as close a name as any. I would have called it
'Hall of Farewell,' but the troll corrected my Sithi gram-
mar." She showed a tight smile. A thread of smoke
floated up past her hands.

Simon thought she might have made a joke, but he
wasn't quite sure. " 'Leavetaking' because this room was
where the two families split up?"

"I believe it is the place where they parted, yes. Where
the accord was struck. I imagine it has or had some other
name for the Sithi, since it was in use long before the
parting of those two tribes."

So he had been right: his vision had shown him the
past of this place. Pondering, he stared along the pillared
hall, at the columns of carved stone still clean and sharp-
edged after countless years. Jiriki's people had once been
mighty builders, but now their homes in the forest were
as changeable and impermanent as the nests of birds. Per-
haps the Sithi were wise not to put down deep roots. Still,
Simon thought, a place that was always there, a home that
did not change, seemed right now to be the finest treasure
in the world.

"Why did the two families separate?"

Geloe shrugged. "There is never one reason for such a

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER                             95

great change, but I have heard that mortals had something
to do with it."

Simon remembered the last, terrible hour in the Yasira.
"The Nom Queen—Utuk'ku. She was mad that the Sithi
hadn't... 'scourged the mortals from the land,* she said.
And she also said that Amerasu wouldn't leave the mor-
tals be. Us mortals. Like me." It was hard to think of
Amerasu the Ship-Bom without shame: her assassin had
claimed that he followed Simon to Jao e-Tinukai'i.

The witch woman stared at him for a moment. "I forget
sometimes how much you have seen, boy. I hope you do
not forget when your time comes."

"What time?"

"As to the parting of Sithi and Nom," she continued,
ignoring his question, "mortals came into it, but also it is
told that the two houses were uneasy allies even in the
land of their origin."

"The Garden?"

"As they call it. I do not know the stories well—such
tales have never been of much interest to me. I have al-
ways worked with the things that are before me, things
that can be touched and seen and spoken to. There was a
woman in it, a Sitha-woman, and a man of the Hikeda'ya
as well. She died. He died. Both families were bitter. It is
old business, boy. If you see your friend Jiriki again, ask
him. It is the history of his own family, after all."

Geloe stood and walked away, leaving Simon to warm
his hands before the flames.

These old stories are like blood. They run through peo-
ple, even when they don't know it or think about it. He
considered this idea for a moment. But even if you don't
think about them, when the bad times come, the old sto-
ries come out on every side. And that's just like blood,
too.

As Simon sat contemplating, Hotvig arrived with his
right-hand man Ozhbern. They were quickly followed by
Isorn and his mother, Duchess Gutrun.

"How is my wife. Duchess?" asked Josua.

"Not feeling well, your Highness," she replied, "or she

96

Tad Williams

would have been here. But it is only to be expected. Chil-
dren aren't just difficult after they arrive, you know."

"I know very little, good lady," Josua laughed. "Espe-
cially about this. I have never been a father before."

Soon Father Strangyeard appeared, accompanied by
Count Eolair of Nad Mullach. The count had replaced his
traveling garments with Thrithings clothes, breeches and
shin of thick brown wool. He wore a golden torque at his
neck, and his black hair was pulled back in a long tail. Si-
mon remembered seeing him long ago, at the Hayholt,
and once again had to marvel at the strangeness of Fate,
how it moved people about the world like markers in a
vast game of shent.

"Welcome, Eolair, welcome," Josua said. "Thanks be
to Aedon, it does my heart good to see you again."

"And mine. Highness." The count tossed the saddle-
bags he carried against the wall by the door, then touched
a knee briefly to the ground. He rose to Josua's embrace.
"Greetings from the Hemystiri nation in exile."

Josua quickly introduced Eolair to those he had not
met. To Simon, the count said: "I have heard something
of your adventures since I arrived." The smile on his thin
face was warm. "I hope you will put aside some time to
speak with me."

Flattered, Simon nodded. "Certainly, Count."

Josua led Eolair to the long table where Thorn waited,
solemn and terrible as a dead king upon his bier.

"The famous blade of Camaris," said the Hemystirman.
"I have heard of it so many times, it is strange to see it
at last and realize it is a real thing, forged of metal like
any other weapon.'"

Josua shook his head. "Not quite like any other
weapon."

"May I touch it?"

"Of course."

Eolair was barely able to lift the hilt from the stone ta-
ble. The cords of his neck stood out in sharp relief as he
strained at it. At last he gave up and rubbed his cramped
fingers. "It is as weighty as a millstone."

"Sometimes." Josua patted his shoulder. "Other times

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

97

it is as light as goosedown. We do not know why, nor do
we know what good it will do us, but it is all we have."

"Father Strangyeard told me of the rhyme," the count
said. "I think I have more to tell you about the Great
Swords." He looked around the room. "If this is the
proper time."

"This is a war council," Josua said simply. "All these
folk can be told anything, and we are anxious for any
news about the swords. We also wish to hear of your peo-
ple, of course. I understand that Lluth is dead. You have
our great sympathy. He was a splendid man and a fine
king."

Eolair nodded. "And Gwythinn, too, his son."

Sir Deornoth, seated on a stool nearby, groaned. "Oh,
that is foul news! He set out from Naglimund shortly be-
fore the siege. What happened?"

"He was caught by Skali's Kaldskrykemen and butch-
ered." Eolair stared down at the ground. "They dumped
his body at the foot of the mountain, like offal, and rode
away."

"A curse on them!" Deomoth snarled,

"I am ashamed to call them countrymen," said young
Isom.

His mother nodded her agreement. "When my husband
returns, he will deal with Sharp-nose." She sounded as
certain as if she spoke of sunset coming.

"Still, we are all countrymen, here," Josua said. "We
are all one people. From this day forward, we go together
against common enemies." He gestured to the stools that
stood against the wall. "Come, everybody sit down. We
must fetch and carry for ourselves: I thought that the
smaller this group remained, the easier it would be to
speak openly."

When all were arrayed, Eolair told of Hernystir's
downfall, beginning with the slaughter at the Inniscrich
and Lluth's mortal wounding. He had barely started when
there was a commotion outside the hall. A moment later,
the old jester Towser stumbled through the door with
Sangfugol tugging at his shirt, trying to restrain him.

"So!" The old man fixed Josua with a reddened stare.

98 Tad Williams

"You are no more loyal than your murdering brother'" He
swayed as Sangfugol pulled at him desperately. Pink-
cheeked and wild-haired—what little hair was left—
Towser was clearly drunk.

"Come away, curse you!" the harper said. "I'm sorry,
my prince, he just suddenly leaped up and ..."

'To think that after all my years of service," Towser
spluttered, "that I should be ... should be ... excluded,"
he pronounced the word with proud care, unaware of the
strand of spittle that hung from his chin, "should be
shunned, barred from your councils, when I was the one
closest to your father's heart.. -."

Josua stood up, regarding the jester sadly. "I cannot
talk to you now, old man. Not when you are like this." He
frowned, watching Sangfugol struggle with him.

"I will help. Prince Josua," Simon said. He could not
bear to watch the old man shame himself a moment
longer. Simon and the harper managed to get Towser
turned around. As soon as his back was to the prince, the
fight seemed to drain out of him; the jester allowed him-
self to be steered toward the door.

Outside, a bitter wind was blowing across the hilltop.
Simon took off his cloak and draped it around Towser's
shoulders. The jester sat down on the top step, a bundle
of sharp bones and thin skin, and said: "I think I will be
sick." Simon patted his shoulder and looked helplessly at
Sangfugol, whose gaze was less than sympathetic.

"It is like taking care of a child," the harper growled.
"No, children are better-behaved. Leieth, for example,
who doesn't talk at all."

"/ told them where to find that damnable black sword,"
Towser mumbled. 'Told them where it was. Told them
about the other, too, how 'Lias wouldn't hold it. 'Your fa-
ther wants you to have it,' I told him, but he wouldn't lis-
ten. Dropped it like a snake. Now the black sword, too."
A tear ran down his white-whiskered cheek. "He tosses
me away like an orange rind."

"What is he talking about?" asked Simon.

Sangfugol curled his lip. "He told the prince some
things about Thorn before you left to find it. I don't know

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER

99

what the rest's about." He leaned down and grasped Tow-
ser's arm. "Huh. Easy for him to complain—he doesn't
have to play nursemaid to himself." He showed Simon a
sour smile. "Ah, well, there are probably bad days in a
knight's career, too, are there not? Like when people hit
you with swords and so on?" He pulled the jester to his
feet and waited for the old man to get his balance. "Nei-
ther Towser nor I are in a very good mood, Simon. Not
your fault. Come see me later and we'll drink some
wine."

Sangfugol turned and walked away across the waving
grass, trying both to support Towser and simultaneously
keep him as far as possible from the harper's clean
clothes.

Prince Josua nodded his thanks when Simon reentered
Leavetaking House; Simon felt odd being commended for
such disheartening duty. Eolair was finishing his descrip-
tion of the fall of Hemysadharc and of his people's flight
into the Grianspog Mountains. As he told of the remain-
ing Hemystirfolk's retreat into the caves that riddled the
mountain and how they had been led there by the king's
daughter. Duchess Outrun smiled.

"This Maegwin is a clever girl. You are lucky to have
her, if the king's wife is as helpless as you say."

The count's smile was a pained one. "You are right,
Lady. She is indeed her father's daughter. I used to think
she would make a better ruler than Gwythinn, who was
sometimes headstrong—but now I am not so sure."

He told of Maegwin's growing strangeness, of her vi-
sions and dreams, and of how those dreams had led
Lluth's daughter and the count down into the mountain's
heart to the ancient stone city of Mezutu'a.

As he told of the city and its unusual tenants, the
dwarrows, the company listened in amazement. Only
Geloe and Binabik did not seem astonished by Eolair's
tale.

"Wonderful," Strangyeard whispered, staring up at
Leavetaking House's arched ceiling as though he were
even now deep in the bowels of Grianspog. "The Pattern
Hall! What marvelous stories must be written there."

100 Tad Williams

"You may read some of them later," Eolair said with
some amusement. "I am glad that the spirit of scholarship
has survived this evil winter." He turned back to the com-
pany. "But what is perhaps most important of all is what
the dwarrows said about the Great Swords. They claim
that they forged Minneyar."

"We are knowing some of Minneyar's story," said
Binabik, "and the dwarrows—or dvernings, as the north-
men call them—are in that story."

"But it is where Minneyar has gone that most concerns
us," Josua added. "We have one sword. Elias has the
other. The third ..."

"Nearly everyone in this hall has seen the third," Eolair
said, "and seen the place where it now lies as well—if the
dwarrows are correct. For they say that Minneyar went
into the Hayholt with Fingil, but that Prester John found
it ... and called it Bright-Nail- If they are right, Josua, it
was buried with your father."

"Oh, my!" Strangyeard murmured. A moment of
stunned silence followed his utterance.

"But I held it in my hand," Josua said at last, wonder-
ingly. "I myself placed it on my father's breast. How
could Bright-Nail be Minneyar? My father never said a
word about it!"

"No, he did not." Outrun was surprisingly brisk- "He
would never even tell my husband. Told Isgrimnur it was
an old, unimportant story." She shook her head. "Se-
crets."

Simon, who had been listening quietly, spoke up at last.
"But didn't he bring Bright-Nail from Warinsten, where
he was born?" He looked to Josua, suddenly fearful that
he was being presumptuous. "Your father, I mean. That is
the story I knew."

Josua frowned, considering. "That is the story that
many told, but now that I think c^ it, my father was never
one of them."

"Of course! Oh, of course!" Strangyeard sat up, slap-
ping his long hands together. His eyepatch slid a little, so
that its comer edged onto the bridge of his nose. "The
passage that troubled Jarnauga so, that passage from Mor-

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER 101

genes' book! It told how John went down to face the
dragon—but he carried a spear! A spear! Oh, good-
ness, how blind we were!" The priest giggled like a
young boy. "But when he came out, it was with Bright-
Nail! Oh, Jamauga, if only you were here!"

The prince raised his hand. "There is much to think of
here, and many old tales that should be retold, but for the
moment there is a more important problem. If the
dwarrows are right, and somehow I feel that they are—
who could doubt such a mad tale, in this mad sea-
son?—we still must get the sword, call it Bright-Nail or
Minneyar. It lies in my father's grave on Swertclif, just
outside the walls of the Hayholt. My brother can stand on
his battlements and see the grave mounds. The Erkyn-
guard parade on the cliff's edge at dawn and dusk."

The giddy moment was over. In the heavy silence that
followed, Simon felt the first stirrings of an idea- It was
vague and unformed, so he kept it to himself. It was also
rather frightening.

Eolair spoke up- "There is more, your Highness. I told
you of the Pattern Hall, and of the charts the dwarrows
keep there of all the delvingg they have done." He rose
and walked to the saddlebags he had deposited near the
doorway. When he returned, he spilled them upon the
floor. Several rolls of oiled sheepskin tumbled on.
"These are the plans for the diggings beneath the
Hayholt, a task the dwarrows say they performed when
the castle was named Asu'a and belonged to the Sithi."

Strangyeard was the first down on his knees. He un-
furled one of the sheepskins with the tender care of a
lover. "Ah!" he breathed. "Ah!" His rhapsodic smile
changed to a look of puzzlement. "I must confess," he
said finally, "that I am, ah, somewhat ... somewhat dis-
appointed. I had not thought that the dwarrows' maps
would be ... dear me! ... would be so crude."

"Those are not the dwarrows' maps," said Eolair,
frowning. "Those are the painstaking work of two
Hernystiri scribes laboring in cramped near-darkness in a
frightening place, copying the stone charts of the

102 Tad Williams

dwarrows onto something I could carry up to the sur-
face."

"Oh!" The priest was mortified. "Oh! Forgive me,
Count! I am so sorry...."

"Never mind, Strangyeard." Josua turned to the Count
of Nad Mullach. "This is an unlooked-for boon, Eolair.
On the day when we can finally stand before the
Hayholt's walls, we will praise your name to the heav-
ens."

"You are welcome to them, Josua. It was Maegwin's
idea, if truth be told. I am not sure what good they will
do, but knowledge is never bad—as I*m sure your archi-
vist will agree." He gestured to Strangyeard, who was
rooting among the sheepskins like a shoat who had un-
covered a clump of truffles. "But I must confess I came
to you in hope of more than thanks. When I left
Hemystir, it was with the idea that I would find your
rebel army and we would together drive Skali of
Kaldskryke from my land. As I see, though, you are
scarcely in a position to send an army anywhere."

"No." Josua's expression was grim. "We are still very
few. More trickle in every day, but it would be a long
wait before we could send even a small company to the
aid of Hernystir." He stood and walked a little way out
across the room, rubbing the stump of his right wrist as
though it pained him. "This whole struggle has been like
fighting a war blindfolded: we have never known or un-
derstood the strength brought against us. Now that we be-
gin to grasp the nature of our enemies, we are too few to
do anything but hide here in the remotest regions of Osten
Ard."

Deomoth leaned forward. "If we could strike back
somewhere, my prince, people would rise on your behalf.
Very few beyond the Thrithings even know that you still
live."

"There is truth to that. Prince Josua," Isom said. "I
know there are many in Rimmersgard who hate Skali.
Some helped to hide me when I escaped from Sharp-
nose's war camp."

"As far as that, Josua, your survival is only a dim ru-

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

103

mor in Hemystir as well," said Eolair. "Just to carry that
information back to my people in the Grianspog will
make my journey here a great success."

Josua, who had been pacing, stopped. "You will take
them more than that. Count Eolair. I swear to you, you
will take them more hope than that." He passed his hand
across his eyes, like one wakened too early, "By the Tree,
what a day! Let us stop and take some bread. In any case,
I would like to think about what I have heard." He smiled
wearily. "Also, I should go and see my wife." He waved
his arm. "Up, all, up. Except you, Strangyeard. I suppose
you will stay behind?"

The archivist, surrounded by sheepskins, did not even
hear him-

«

Immersed in dark and mazy thoughts, Pryrates did not
for some time notice the sound.

When at last it cut through the fog of his preoccupa-
tion, he stopped abruptly, teetering on the edge of the
step.

"Azha she'she t'chako, urun she'she bhabekro ..."

The sound that rose from the darkened stairwell was
delicate but dire, a solemn melody that wove in and out
of painful dissonance: it might have been the contempla-
tive hymn of a spider winding its prey in sticky silk.
Breathy and slow, it slid sourly between notes, but with a
deftness that suggested the seeming tunelessness was
intentional—was in fact based in an entirely different
concept of melody.

"Mudhul samat'ai. Jabbak s'era memekeza sanayha-z.'d
Ninyek she 'she, hamut 'tke agrazh 'a s 'era ye ..."

A lesser man might have turned and fled back toward
the upper reaches of the daylit castle rather than meet the
singer of such an unsettling tune. Pryrates did not hesi-

104 Tad Williams

tate, but set off downward once more, his boots echoing
on the stone steps. A second thread of melody joined the
first, just as alien, just as dreadfully patient; together they
droned like wind over a chimney hole.

Pryrates reached the landing and turned into the corri-
dor. The two Noms who stood before the heavy oaken
door abruptly fell silent. As he approached, they gazed at
him with the incurious and faintly insulting expression of
cats disturbed while sunning.

They were big for Hikeda'ya, Pryrates realized: each
was tall as a very tall man, though they were thin as
starveling beggars. They held their silver-white lances
loosely, and their deathly pale faces were calm within the
dark hoods.

Pryrates stared at the Morns. The Norns stared at
Pryrates.

"Well? Are you going to gape or are you going to open
the door for me?"

One of the Noms slowly bowed his head. "Yes, Lord
Pryrates." There was not the slightest hint of deference in
his icy, accented speech. He turned around and pulled
open the great door, exposing a corridor red with torch-
light and more stairs. Pryrates stepped between the two
guards and started downward; the door swung shut behind
him. Before he had gone ten steps, the eerie spider-
melody had begun once more.

Hammers rose and fell, clanging and clattering, pound-
ing the cooling metal into shapes useful to the king who
sat in a darkened throne room far above his foundry. The
din was terrible, the stench—brimstone, white-hot iron,
earth scorched to dry salt, even the savory-sweet odor of
burned manflesh—even worse.

The deformity of the men who scurried back and forth
across the floor of the great forge chamber was severe, as
though the terrible, baking heat of this underground cav-
ern had melted them like bad metal- Even their heavy,
padded clothing could not hide it. In truth, Pryrates knew,
it was only those hopelessly twisted in body or spirit or
both that still remained here, working in Elias' armory. A

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER           105

few of the others had been lucky enough to escape early
on, but most of the able-bodied had been worked to death
by Inch, the hulking overseer. A few smallish groups had
been selected by Pryrates himself to aid in certain of his
experiments; what was left of them had eventually been
returned here, to feed the same furnaces in death they had
served in life.

The king's counselor squinted through the hanging
smoke, watching the forge men as they struggled along
beneath huge burdens or hopped back like scalded frogs
when a tongue of flame came too close. One way or the
other, Pryrates reflected. Inch had dealt with all those
more lovely or clever than himself.

In fact, Pryrates thought, grinning at his own cruel lev-
ity, if that was the standard it was a miracle anyone at all
remained to stoke the fires or tend the molten metals in
the great crucibles.

There was a lull in the clangor of hammers, and in that
moment of near-quiet, Pryrates heard a squeaking noise
behind him. He turned, careful not to appear too hurried,
in case someone was watching. Nothing could frighten
the red priest: it was important that everyone know that.
When he saw what made the sound, he grinned and spat
onto the stone.

The vast water wheel covered most of the cavern wall
behind him. The mighty wooden wheel, steel-shod and
fixed on a hub cross-cut from a huge tree trunk, dipped
water from a powerful stream that sluiced through the
forge, then lifted it up and spilled it into an ingenious lab-
yrinth of troughs. These directed the water to a number of
different spots throughout the forge, to cool metal or to
put out fires, or even—when the rare mood struck
Inch—to be lapped at by the forge's parched and misera-
ble laborers. The turning wheel also drove a series of
black-scummed iron chains, the largest of which reached
vertically up into the darkness to provide the motive force
for certain devices dear to Pryrates' heart. But at this mo-
ment it was the digging and lifting of the wheel's paddles
that engaged the alchemist's imagination. He wondered
idly if such a mechanism, built mountain-large and spun

io6 Tad Williams

by the straining sinews of several thousand whimpering
slaves, could not dredge up the bottom of the sea and ex-
pose the secrets hidden for eons there in darkness.

As he contemplated what fascinating things the
millenial ooze might disgorge, a wide, black-nailed hand
dropped down upon his sleeve. Pryrates whirled and
slapped it away.

"How dare you touch me?!" he hissed, dark eyes nar-
rowing. He bared his teeth as though he might tear out the
throat of the tall, stooping figure before him.

Inch stared back for a moment before replying. His
round face was furred by a patchwork of beard and fire-
scarred flesh. He seemed, as always, thick and implacable
as stone. "You want to talk to me?"

"Never touch me again." Pryrates' voice was restrained
now, but it still trembled with a deadly tension. "Never."

Inch frowned, his uneven brow wrinkling. The hole
where one eye had been gaped unpleasantly. "What do
you need from me?"

The alchemist paused and took a breath, forcing down
the black rage that had climbed up into his skull. Pryrates
was surprised at his own violent reaction. It was foolish
to waste anger on the brutish foundrymaster. When Inch
had served his purpose, he could be slaughtered like the
dull beast he was. Until then, he was useful to the king's
plans—and, more importantly, to Pryrate's own.

"The king wishes the curtain wall refortified. New
joists, new cross-bracing—the heaviest timbers that we
can bring from the Kynslagh."

Inch lowered his head, thinking. The effort was almost
palpable. "How soon?" he said at last.

"By Candlemansa. A week later and you and all your
groundlings will find yourselves above the Nearulagh
Gate keeping company with ravens." Pryrates had to re-
strain a chuckle at the thought of Inch's misshapen head
spiked above the gate. Even the crows would not fight
over that morsel. "I will hear no excuses—that gives you
a third of a year. And speaking of the Nearulagh Gate,
there are a few other things you must do as well. A few
very important things. Some improvements to the gate's

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER                           I0y

defenses." He reached into his robe and produced a scroll.
Inch unfurled it and held it up to better catch the fitful
light of the forge fires. "That must also be finished by
Candlemansa."

"Where is the king's seal?" Inch wore a surprisingly
shrewd look on his puckered face.

Pryrates' hand flew up. A flicker of greasy yellow light
played along his fingertips. After a moment the glow
winked out; he let his hand drop back to his side, hidden
in a voluminous scarlet sleeve. "If you ever question me
again," the alchemist gritted, "I will blast you to flakes of
ash."

The foundry master's face was solemn. "Then walls and
gate will not be finished. No one makes them work as fast
as Doctor Inch."

"Doctor Inch." Pryrates curled his thin lip. "Usires
save me, I am tired of talking to you- Just do your Job as
King Elias wishes. You are luckier than you know, bump-
kin. You will see the beginning of a great era, a golden
age." But only the beginning, and not much of that, the
priest promised himself. "I will be back in two days. You
will tell me then how many men you need, and what other
things."

As he strode away, he thought he heard Inch call some-
thing after him, but when Pryrates turned, the forgemaster
was staring instead at the water wheel's thick spokes
passing in a never-ending circle. The clatter of hammers
was sharp, but still Pryrates could hear the ponderous,
mournful creaking of the turning wheel.

Duke Isgrimnur leaned on the windowsill, stroking his
new-sprouted beard and staring down at the greasy water-
ways of Kwanitupul. The storm had passed, the sprinkling
of bizarrely unseasonal snow had melted, and the marshy
air, though still oddly cool, had returned to its usual stick-
iness. Isgrimnur felt a strong urge to be moving, to do
something.

Trapped, he thought. Pinned down as surely as if by

io8 Tad Williams

archers. It's like the damnable Battle of Clodu Lake all
over again.

But of course there were no archers, no hostile forces
of any kind. Kwanitupul, at least temporarily freed from
the cold's grip and restored to its usual mercenary exis-
tence, paid no more attention to Isgrimnur than it did to
any of the thousands of others who occupied its ram-
shackle body like so many busy fleas. No, it was circum-
stance that had trapped the former master of Elvritshalla,
and circumstance was right now a more implacable en-
emy than any human foes, no matter how many and how
well-armed.

Isgrimnur stood up with a sigh and turned to look at
Camaris, who sat propped against the far wall, tying and
untying a length of rope. The old man, once the greatest
knight in Osten Ard, looked up and smiled his soft, idiot-
child's smile. For all his white-haired age, his teeth were
still good. He was strong, too, with a grip most young
tavern brawlers would envy.

But weeks of constant effort on Isgrimnur's part had
not altered that maddening smile. Whether Camaris was
bewitched, wounded in the head, or simply deranged with
age, it all came to the same end: the duke had not been
able to summon forth even a flicker of recollection. The
old man did not recognize Isgrimnur, did not remember
his past or even his own true name. If the duke had not
once known Camaris so well he might even have begun to
doubt his own senses and memory, but Isgrimnur had
seen John's paramount knight at every season, in every
light, in good times and evil times. The old man might no
longer know himself, but Isgrimnur was not mistaken.

Still, what should be done with him? Whether he was
hopelessly mad or not, he should be helped. The most ob-
vious task was to get the old man to those who would re-
member and revere him. Even if the world Camaris had
helped build was now crumbling, even if King Elias had
laid waste to the dream of Camaris' friend and liege-lord
John, still the old man deserved to spend his last years in
some better place than this backwater pesthole. Also, if
anyone yet survived of Prince Josua's folk, they should

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER

109

know that Camaris lived. The old man could be a power-
ful emblem of hope and of better days—and Isgrimnur, a
shrewd statesman for all his bluff disavowals, knew the
value of a symbol.

But even if Josua or some of his captains had somehow
survived and regrouped somewhere to the north of here,
as Kwanitupul market rumor suggested, how could
Isgrimnur and Camaris reach them through a Nabban full
of enemies? How could he leave this inn in any case? Fa-
ther Dinivan, with his dying breath, had told Isgrimnur to
bring Miriamele here. The duke had not found her before
being forced to flee the Sancellan Aedonitis, but
Miriamele might already know of this place—perhaps
Dinivan himself had mentioned it to her! She might come
here, alone and friendless, and find Isgrimnur already
gone. Could the duke risk that? He owed it to Josua—
whether the prince was living or dead—to do his best to
help her.

Isgrimnur had hoped that Tiamak—who in some
unspecified way was an intimate of Dinivan's—might
know something about Miriamele's whereabouts, but that
hope had been immediately dashed. After much prodding,
the little brown man had admitted that Dinivan had sent
him here as well, but without explanation. Tiamak had
been very preoccupied with the news of the deaths of
Dinivan and Morgenes and afterward had offered nothing
helpful to Isgrimnur at all. In fact, the duke thought him
somewhat sullen. Although the marsh man's leg was ob-
viously painful—a cockindrill had bitten him. he said—
still Isgrimnur thought that Tiamak could do more to help
solve the various riddles that plagued them both,
Dinivan's purpose uppermost among them. But instead he
seemed content just to sulk around the room—a room
paid for by Isgrimnur!—or to spend long hours writing or
limping along the wooden walkways of Kwanitupul, as he
was doubtless doing now.

Isgrimnur was about to say something to silent Camaris
when there was a knock at the door. It creaked open to
reveal the landlady, Charystra.

"I've brought the food you asked for." Her tone im-

I 10 Tad Williams

plied that she had made some great personal sacrifice in-
stead of merely taking Isgrimnur's money for grossly
overpriced bed and board. "Some nice bread and soup.
Very nice. With beans." She set the tureen on the low ta-
ble and clanked down three bowls beside it. "I don't un-
derstand why you can't come down to eat with everyone
else." Everyone else was two Wrannaman feather mer-
chants and an itinerant gem cutter from Naraxi who was
looking for work.

"Because I pay not to," Isgrimnur growled-

"Where's the marsh man?" She ladled out the
unsteaming soup.

"I don't know, and I don't think it's business of yours,
either." He glowered. "I saw you go off with your friend
this morning."

"To the market," she sniffed. "I can't take my boat, be-
cause he—" hands full, she waggled her head in the direc-
tion of Camaris, "—never fixed it."

"Nor will I let him, for the sake of his dignity—and
I'm paying you for that, too." Isgrimnur's sour temper
was rising. Charystra always tested the boundaries of the
duke's chivalry. "You are very quick with your tongue,
woman. I wonder what you tell your friends at the market
about me and your other strange guests."

She darted an apprehensive look in his direction.
"Nothing, I'm sure."

"That had better be true. I gave you money to keep si-
lent about . . . about my friend here." He looked at
Camaris, who was happily spooning oily soup into his
mouth. "But in case you think to take my money and still
spread tales, remember: if I find you have talked about
me or my business ... / will make you wish you hadn't."
He let his deep voice rumble the words like thunder.

Charystra took a step back in alarm. "I'm sure I
haven't said nothing! And you've no cause to be threaten-
ing me, sir! No cause! It's not right!" She started toward
the door, waving the ladle as if to fend off blows. "I said
I wouldn't say anything and I won't. Anyone will tell
you—Charystra keeps her word'" She quickly made the

TO   OREEN   ANGEL   TOWER

III

sign of the Tree, then slipped out into the hall, leaving a
spatter of soup spots on the plank flooring.

"Hah," Isgrimnur snorted. He stared at the grayish
fluid still rippling in me bowl. Pay for her silence, indeed.
That was like paying the sun not to shine. He had been
throwing money around as though it were Wran water—
soon it would run out. Then what would he do? It made
him angry just to think about it. "Hah!" he said again.
"Damn me."

Camaris wiped his chin and smiled, staring at nothing.

^

Simon leaned around the standing stone and peered
downward. The pale sun was nearly straight overhead; it
knifed down through the undergrowth, revealing a flicker
of reflection on the hillside.

"Here it is," he called back, then leaned against the
wind-smoothed pillar to wait- The white stone had not yet
shed its morning chill, and was even colder than the sur-
rounding air. After a moment, Simon began to feel his
bones turning to ice. He stepped away and turned to sur-
vey the line of the hill's edge. The standing stones circled
Sesuad'ra's summit like the spikes of a king's crown.
Several of the ancient pillars had fallen down, so the
crown had a somewhat bedraggled look, but most stood
tall and straight, still doing their duty after a span of un-
gues sable centuries.

They look just like the Anger Stones on Thisterborg, he
realized.

Could that be a Sithi place, too? There were certainly
enough strange stories told about it.

Where were those two? "Are you coming?" he called.

When he received no answer, he clambered around the
stone and made his way a short distance down the hill-
side, careful to keep a solid grip on the sturdy heather de-
spite the resultant prickling: the ground was muddy and
potentially treacherous. Below, the valley was full of gray
water that barely rippled, so that the new lake around the
hill seemed solid as a stone floor. Simon could not help

ii2                   Tad Williams

thinking of the days when he had climbed to the
bellchamber of Green Angel Tower and felt himself sit-
ting cloud-high above the world. Here on Sesuad'ra, it
was as though the entire hill of stone had just now been
bom, thrusting up from the primordial muck. It was easy
to pretend there was nothing beyond this place, that this
was how it must have felt when God stood atop Mount
Den Haloi and made the world, as told in the Book of the
Aedon.

Jiriki had told Simon about the coming of the
Gardenbom to Osten Ard. In those days, the Sitha had
said, most of the world had been covered in ocean, just as
the west still was. Jiriki's folk had sailed out of the rising
sun, across unimaginable distances, to land on the verdant
coastline of a world innocent of humanity, a vast island in
a great surrounding sea. Some later cataclysm, Jiriki had
implied, had men changed the face of the world; the land
had risen and the seas had drained away to east and south,
leaving new mountains and meadows behind them. Thus,
the Gardenborn could never return to their lost home.

Simon thought about this as he squinted out toward the
east. There was little to see from atop Sesuad'ra but
murky steppes, lifeless plains of endless gray and dull
green, stretching to where vision failed. From what Si-
mon had heard, the eastern steppes had been inhospitable
territory even before this dread winter: they grew increas-
ingly barren and shelterless the farther east of Aldheorte
Forest one went. Beyond a certain point, travelers
claimed, even the Hyrkas and Thrithings-folk did not
journey. The sun never truly shone there and the land was
sunken in perpetual twilight. The few hardy souls who
had crossed that murky expanse in search of other lands
had never returned.

He realized he had been staring a long time, yet he was
still alone. He was just about to call again when Jeremias
appeared, picking his way carefully through the brambles
and waist-high grass toward the edge of the hill. Leieth,
barely visible in the swaying undergrowth, held the young
squire's hand. She seemed to have taken a liking to Jere-
mias, although it was shown only by her constant proxim-

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER

113

ity. She still did not speak, and her expression remained
perpetually solemn and abstracted, but when she could
not be with Geloe, she was nearly always with Jeremias.
Simon guessed that she might have sensed in the young
squire something like her own pain, some shared afflic-
tion of the heart.

"Does it go down into the ground," Jeremias called,
"or over the edge?"

"Both," said Simon, pointing.

They had been following the path of this spring from
the point where it appeared in the building Geloe had
named the House of Waters. Issuing mysteriously from
the rocks, it did not drain away after pooling at the base
of the spring—where it provided fresh drinking water for
New Gadrinsett, and thus had become one of the centers
of gossip and commerce for the infant settlement—but
rather gurgled out of the little pond in a narrow streamlet,
passing out of the House of Waters, which was at one of
the highest points on Sesuad'ra, then running across the
summit as a tiny rivulet, appearing and disappearing as
the features of the ground changed. Simon had never seen
or heard of a spring that behaved in such a way—who
had ever heard of a spring on a hilltop, anyway?—and he
was bound and determined to discover its path, and per-
haps its origin, before the storms returned and made the
hunt impossible.

Jeremias joined Simon a little way down the hillside.
They both stood over the swift-flowing rivulet.

"Do you think it goes all the way down," Jeremias ges-
tured to the vast gray moat around the base of the Stone
of Farewell, "or does it go back into the hill?"

Simon shrugged. Water that sprang from the heart of a
Sithi sacred mountain might indeed pass back into the
rock once more, like some. incomprehensible wheel of
creation and destruction—like the future approaching to
absorb the present, then quickly falling away again to be-
come the past. He was about to suggest further explora-
tion, but Leieth was making her way down the hill. Simon
worried for her, although she herself seemed to pay little

li4

Tad Williams

attention to the hazardous trail. She could easily slip, and
the slope was steep and dangerous.

Jeremias took a couple of steps up and reached for her,
catching her under her thin arms and lifting her down to
stand beside them. As he did so, her loose dress rode up,
and for a brief moment Simon saw her scars, long in-
flamed weals that covered her thighs. They must be far
worse on her stomach, he reflected.

He had been thinking all morning about what he had
heard in Leavetaking House about the Great Swords and
other things. These matters had seemed abstract, as
though Simon, his friends and allies, Elias, even the
dreadful Storm King himself, were no more than pieces
on a shent board, tiny things that could be considered in
a hundred different configurations. Now, suddenly, he
was reminded of the true horrors of the recent past.
Leieth, an innocent child, had been terrorized and sav-
aged by the hounds of Stormspike; thousands more just as
innocent had been made homeless, been orphaned, tor-
mented, killed. Anger suddenly made Simon sway on his
feet, as if the very force of his fury might knock him
stumbling- If there was any justice, someone would pay
for what had happened—for Morgenes, Haestan, Leieth,
for Jeremias with his now-thin face and unspoken sor-
rows, for Simon himself, homeless and sad.

Usires have mercy on me, I would kill them all if I
could. Elias and Pryrates and their white-faced Noms—if
only I could, I would kill them with my own hands.

"I saw her at the castle," said Jeremias. Simon looked
up, startled. He had clenched his fists so tightly that his
knuckles hurt.

"What?"

"Leieth." Jeremias nodded at the child, who was
smearing her dirty face as she stared out across the
flooded valley. "When she was Princess Miriamele's
handmaiden. I remember thinking, 'what a pretty little
girl.' She was all dressed in white, carrying flowers- I
thought she looked very clean." He laughed quietly.
"Look at her now."

Simon found he did not want to talk about sorrowful

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER

115

things. "And look at you," he said. "You're one to be
talking about clean."

Jeremias would not be distracted. "Did you really
know her, Simon? The princess, I mean."

"Yes." Simon didn't want to tell Jeremias that story
again. He had been bitterly disappointed to find
Miriamele was not with Josua, and horrified that no one
knew where she was. He had dreamed of telling her his
adventures, of the way her bright eyes would go wide as
he told her of the dragon. "Yes." he repeated, "I knew
her."

"And was she beautiful, like a princess should be?"
Jeremias asked, suddenly intent.

"I suppose so." Simon was reluctant to talk about her.
"Yes, she was—I mean, she is."

Jeremias was about to ask something else, but was in-
terrupted. "Ho!" a voice cried from above. "There you
are'"

A strange, two-headed silhouette was looking down at
them from beside the standing stone. One of the heads
had pointed ears.

"We're trying to find out where the spring comes from
and where it goes, Binabik," Sunon called-

The wolf tilted her head and barked.

"Qantaqa thinks you should stop your water-following
for now, Simon," Binabik laughed. "Besides, Josua has
asked all to be returning to the Leavetaking Hall- There is
much to talk about."

"We're coming."

Simon and Jeremias each took one of Leieth's small
cold hands and clambered back up toward the hillcrest.
The sun stared down on them all like a milky eye.

All who had been gathered in the morning had returned
to Leavetaking House. They talked quietly, perhaps over-
awed by the size and strange dimensions of the hall, so
much more unsettling when it was not filled with a dis-
tracting crowd as it had been the night before. The sickly
afternoon light leaked in through the windows, but with
so little strength that it seemed to come from no direction

n6 Tad Williams

at all, smearing all the room equally; the meticulous wall-
carvings gleamed as though by their own faint inner light,
reminding Simon of the shimmering moss in the tunnels
beneath the Hayholt. He had been lost there in choking,
strangling blackness. He had been in a place beyond de-
spair. Surely to survive that meant something. Surely he
had been spared for a reason!

Please, Lord Aedon, he prayed, don't bring me so far
just to let me die?

But he had already cursed God for letting Haestan per-
ish. It was doubtless too late for making amends.

Simon opened his eyes to find that Josua had arrived.
The prince had been with Vorzheva, and assured them all
that she was feeling better.

Accompanying Josua were two who had not been at the
morning council, Sludig—who had been scouting the pe-
rimeter of the valley—and a heavyset young Falshireman
named Freosel, who had been chosen by the settlers as
constable of New Gadrinsett. Despite his relative youth,
Freosel had the wary, heavy-lidded look of a veteran
street fighter. He was liberally scarred and two of his fin-
gers were missing.

After Strangyeard had spoken a short blessing, and the
new constable had been cautioned to hold secret the
things he would hear. Prince Josua stood.

"We have many things to decide," he said, "but before
we begin, let me talk to you of good luck and of more
hopeful days.

"When it seemed that there was nothing left but despair
and defeat. God favored us- We are now in a safe place,
when a season ago we were scattered over the world, the
castaways of war. We undertook a quest for one of the
three Great Swords, which may be our hope of victory,
and that quest has succeeded. More people flock to our
banner every day, so that if we only can wait long
enough, we will soon have an army that will give even
my brother the High King pause-

"Our needs are still great, of course. Out of those peo-
ple driven from their homes throughout Erkynland, we
can indeed mount an army, but to overcome the High

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

117

King we will need many more. It is also certain that we
are already hard-pressed to feed and shelter those who are
here. And it is even possible that no army, however large
and well-provided, will be great enough to defeat Elias'
ally the Storm King." Josua paused. "Thus, as I see it, the
important questions we must answer this day are three:

What does my brother plan to do? How can we assemble
a force that will prevent it? And how can we retrieve the
other two swords, Bright-Nail and Sorrow, that we may
have a hope of defeating the Norns and their dark master
and mistress?"

Geloe lifted her hand. "Your pardon, Josua, but I think
there is one more question: How much time do we have
to do any of these things?"

"You are right, Valada Geloe. If we are able to protect
this place for another year, we might gather a great
enough force to begin disputing Elias on his own ground,
or at least his outermost holdings—but like you, I doubt
we will be left unmolested so long."

Others raised their voices, asking about what further
strength could be expected from the east and north of
Erkynland, territories that chafed beneath King Elias'
heavy hand, and where other alKes might be found. After
a while, Josua again called the room to silence.

"Before we can solve any of these riddles," he de-
clared, "it is my thought that we must solve the first and
most important one—namely, what does my brother
want?"

"Power!" said Isom. "The power to cast men's lives
around as if they were dice."

"He had that already," Josua replied. "But I have
thought long, and can think of no other answer. Certainly
the world has seen other kings who were not content with
what they had. Perhaps the answer to this most crucial
question may remain hidden from us until the very end. If
we knew the shape of Elias' bargain with the Storm King,
perhaps then we would understand my brother's secret in-
tent."

"Prince Josua," Binabik spoke up, "I myself have been
puzzling about a different thing. Whatever your brother is

n8 Tad Williams

wishing to do, the Storm King's power and dark magics
will be helping him. But what is the Storm King wanting
in return?"

The great stone hall went silent for a moment, then the
voices of those assembled rose once more, arguing, until
Josua had to stamp his boot on the floor to silence them.

"You ask a dreadful question, Binabik," said the prince.
"What indeed could that dark one want?"

Simon thought about the shadows beneath the Hayholt
where he had stumbled in a terrible, ghost-ridden dream.
"Maybe he wants his castle back," he said.

Simon had spoken softly, and others in the room who
had not heard him continued to talk quietly among them-
selves, but Josua and Binabik both turned to stare at him.

"Merciful Aedon," said Josua. "Could it be?"

Binabik thought for a long moment, then shook his
head slowly. "There is being something wrong in that
thought—although it is clever thinking, Simon. Tell me,
Geloe, what is it that I am half-remembering?"

The witch woman nodded. "Ineluki cannot ever come
back to that castle- When Asu'a fell, its ruins were so
priest-blessed and so tightly wound in spells that he could
not return before the end of time. No, I do not think he
can have it back, much as he no doubt burns to reclaim
it... but he may wish to rule through Elias what he can-
not rule himself. For all their power, the Noms are few—
but as the shadow behind the Dragonbone Chair, the
Storm King could reign over all the lands of Osten Ard."

Josua's face was grave. "And to think that my brother
has so little care for either his people or his throne that he
would sell them for some trifling prize to the enemy of
mankind." He turned to the others assembled there, anger
poorly hidden on his thin features. "We will take this as
truth for now, that the Storm King wishes to rule mankind
through my brother. Ineluki, I am told, is a creature sus-
tained mostly by hatred, so I do not need to tell you what
sort of reign his would be. Simon has told us that the
Sitha-woman Amerasu foresaw what the Storm King de-
sired for men, and she called it 'terrible.' We must do all
that we can—even up to tithing our lives, if neces-

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER                           119

sary—to halt them both. Now the other questions must be
addressed. How do we fight them?"

In the hours that followed many plans were proposed.
Freosel cautiously suggested that they merely wait in this
place of refuge as disaffection with Elias grew throughout
Osten Ard. Hotvig, who for a plainsman seemed to be
taking well to stone-dweller intrigue, put forward a bold
scheme to send men who, with Eolair's maps, would
sneak into the Hayholt and kill both Elias and Pryrates.
Father Strangyeard seemed distressed at the idea of send-
ing the precious maps off with a band of brutish murder-
ers. As the merits of these and other proposals were
introduced and debated, tempers grew hot. When at one
point Isom and Hotvig, who normally were cheerful com-
rades, had nearly come to blows, Josua at last ended the
discussion.

"Remember that we are friends and allies here," he
said. "We all share a common desire to return our lands
to freedom." The prince looked around the room, calming
his excited advisers with a stem gaze, as a Hyrka trainer
was said to quiet horses without touching them. "I have
heard all, and I am grateful for vpur help, but now I must
decide." He placed his hand on the stone table, near
Thorn's silver-wrapped hilt. "I agree that we must wait
yet a while before we will be ready to strike at Elias," he
nodded in Freosel's direction, "—but we may not stand
still, either. Also, our allies in Hemystir are trapped. They
could be a valuable irritant on Elias' western flank if they
were free to move once more. If the westerners were to
gather together some of their scattered countrymen, they
could be even more than that. Thus, I have decided to
combine two purposes and see if they cannot serve each
other."

Josua beckoned forward the lord of Nad Mullach.
"Count Eolair, I will send you back to your people with
more than thanks, as I promised. With you will go Isom,
son of Duke Isgrimnur." Outrun could not restrain a muf-
fled cry of sadness at this, but when her son turned to
comfort her, she smiled bravely and patted his shoulder.

120 Tad Williams

Josua bowed his head toward her, acknowledging her sor-
row. "You will understand when you hear my plan. Duch-
ess, that I do not do this without reason. Isorn, take with
you a half-dozen or so men. Perhaps some of Hotvig's
randwarders will consent to accompany you: they are
brave fighters and tireless horsemen. On your journey to
Hernystir, you will gather as many of your wandering
countrymen as you can. I know that most of them do not
love Skali Sharpnose, and many I hear are now unhomed
on the Frostmarch. Then, on your own judgment, you can
put those you find to service—either helping to break
Skali's siege of Eolair's folk, or if that is not possible, re-
turning with you here to help us in our fight against my
brother." Josua looked fondly at Isom, who was listening
with eyes downcast in concentration, as though he wished
to learn each word by heart. "You are the duke's son.
They respect you, and they will believe you when you tell
them that this is the first step in regaining their own

lands."

The prince turned back to the assembly. "While Isom
and the others undertake this mission, we here will work
to further our other causes- And there is indeed much to
do. The north has been so thoroughly savaged by winter,
by Skali, by Elias and his ally the Storm King, that I fear
that however successful Isorn is, the lands north of
Erkynland will not prove sufficient to provide all the for-
ces we need. Nabban and the south are firmly in the grip
of Elias1 friends, especially Benigaris, but I must have the
south myself. Only then will we truly have the number of
fighting men to confront Elias. So, we will work, and
talk, and think. There must be some way of cutting
Benigaris off from Elias' help, but at the moment I cannot
see it."

Simon had been listening impatiently, but had held his
tongue. Now, when it seemed as though Josua had fin-
ished with what he had to say, Simon could not stay quiet
any longer. While the others had been shouting, he had
been thinking with growing excitement about the things
he had discussed with Binabik that morning.

"But Prince Josua," he cried, "what about the swords?"

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER

121

The prince nodded. "Those, too, we will have to think
about. Do not worry, Simon: I have not forgotten them."

Simon took a breath, determined to plunge on. "The
best thing to do would be to surprise Elias. Send Binabik
and Sludig and me to get Bright-Nail. It's outside the
walls of the Hayholt. With just the three of us, we could
go to your father's grave and find it, then be away before
the king even knew we'd been there- He'd never suspect
that we'd do such a thing." Simon had a momentary vi-
sion of how it would be: he and his companions bearing
Bright-Nail back to Sesuad'ra in glory, Simon's new
dragon banner flapping above them.

Josua smiled but shook his head. "No one doubts your
bravery, Sir Seoman, but we cannot risk it."

"We found Thorn when no one thought we could."

"But the Erkynguard did not march past Thorn's rest-
ing place every day."

"The dragon did!"

"Enough." Josua raised his hand. "No, Simon, it is not
yet time. When we can attack Elias from west or south
and thus distract his eye away from Swertclif and the
grave mounds, then it will be time. You have earned great
honor, and you will no doubt earn more, but you are now
a knight of the realm, with all the responsibilities that go
with your title. I regretted sending you away in search of
Thorn and despaired of ever seeing you again. Now that
you have succeeded beyond all hope, I would have you
here for a while—Binabik and Sludig, too ... whom you
neglected to consult before volunteering them for this
deadly mission." He smiled to soften the blow. "Peace,
lad, peace,"

Simon was filled with the same stifling, trapped feeling
that had beset him in Jao e-Tinukai'i. Didn't they under-
stand that to wait too long to strike could mean they
would lose their chance? That evil would go unpunished?
"Can I go with Isorn?" he pleaded. "I want to help,
Prince Josua."

"Learn to be a knight, Simon, and enjoy these days of
relative freedom. There will be enough danger later on."
The prince stood. Simon could not help seeing the weari-

122 Tad Williams

ness in his expression. "That is enough. Eolair, Isorn, and
whoever Isorn chooses should make ready to leave in two
days' time- Let us now go. A meal has been prepared—
not as lavish as the meal celebrating Simon's knighthood,
but something that will do us all good, nevertheless."
With a wave of his hand, he ended the gathering.

Binabik approached Simon, wanting to talk, but Simon
was angry and at first would not answer. It was back to
this, was it? Wait, Simon, wait. Let others make the deci-
sions. You'll be tola what to do soon enough.

"It was a good idea," he muttered.

"It will still be a good idea later," said Binabik, "when
we are then distracting Elias, as Josua was telling."

Simon glared at him, but something in the troll's round
face made his anger seem foolish. "I just want to be use-
ful."

"You are far more than that, friend Simon. But every-
thing is having its season. 'Iq ta randayhet suk biqahuc,'
as we say in my homeland: 'Winter is not being the time
for naked swimming.' "

Simon thought about this for a moment. "That's supid,"
he said at last.

"So," Binabik responded testily. "You may be saying
what you please—but do not then come weeping to my
fire when you have chosen the wrong season for swim-
ming."

They walked silently across the grassy hill, haunted by
the cold sun.

4

Tfte Sifent Oufcf

AWlOUCfh the air was warm and still, the dark clouds
seemed unnaturally thick. The ship had been almost mo-
tionless all day, sails slack against the masts.

"I wonder when the storm is coming," Miriamele said
aloud.

A young sailor standing nearby looked up in surprise.
"Lady? You say to me?"

"I said that I wondered when the storm was coming."
She gestured at the clot of overhanging clouds.

"Yes, Lady." He seemed uneasy talking with her. His
command of Westerling speech was not great: she
guessed that he was from one of the smaller southern is-
lands, on some of which the residents didn't even speak
Nabbanai. "Storm coming."

"I know it's coming. I was wondering when."

"Ah." He nodded his head, then looked around fur-
tively, as though the valuable knowledge he was about to
impart might draw thieves. "Storm come very soon." He
showed her a wide, gummy smile. His gaze traveled up
from her shoes to her face and his grin widened. "Very
pretty."

Her momentary pleasure in having a conversation,
however limited, was dashed. She recognized the look in
this sailor's eyes, the insulting stare. However free he was
in his inspection, he would never dare to touch her, but
that was only because he considered her a toy that right-
fully belonged to the ship's master, Aspitis. Her flash of
indignation was mixed with a sudden uncertainty. Was he

124

Tad Williams

right? Despite all the doubts she now harbored about the
earl—who, if Gan Itai spoke rightly, had met with
Pryrates, and if Cadrach spoke rightly, was even in the
red priest's employ—she at least had believed that his an-
nounced plan to marry her was genuine. But now she
wondered if it might only be a ruse, something to keep
her pliant and grateful until he could discard her in
Nabban and go looking for new flesh. He no doubt
thought she would be too ashamed to tell anyone what
had happened.

Miriamele was not sure which upset her more at this
point, the possibility of being forced to marry Aspitis or
the conflicting possibility that he could lie to her with the
same airy condescension he might show to a pretty tavern
whore.

She stared coldly at the sailor until at last, puzzled, he
turned and made his way back toward the bow of the
ship. Miriamele watched him go, silently willing him to
tnp and bash his smug face on the deck, but her wish was
not granted. She turned her eyes back to the sooty gray
clouds and the dull, metallic ocean.

A trio of small objects were bobbing in the water off
the stern, a good stone's throw from the ship. As
Miriamele watched, one of the objects moved closer, then
opened its red hole of a mouth and hooted. The kilpa's
gurgling voice carried well across the calm waters;

Miriamele jumped in surprise. At her motion, all three
heads swung to face her, wet black eyes staring, mouths
gaping loutishly. Miriamele took a step back from the rail
and made the sign of the Tree, then turned to escape the
empty eyes and almost knocked over Thures, the young
page who served Earl Aspitis.

"Lady Marya," he said. and tried to bow, but he was
too close to her. He banged his head against her elbow
and gave out a little squeak of pain. When she reached
out to soothe him, he pulled away, embarrassed. "'S
Lordship wants you."
"Where, Thures?"

"Cabin." He composed himself. "In his cabin. Lady."
"Thank you."

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

125

The boy stepped back as if to lead her, but Miriamele's
eyes had again been caught by a movement in the water
below. One of the kilpa had drifted away from the other
two and now swam slowly up next to the ship. With its
empty eyes fixed on hers, the sea-thing lifted a slick
gray hand from the water and ran its long fingers along
the hull as if casually searching for climbing holds.
Miriamete watched with fascinated horror, unable to
move. After a moment, the unpleasantly manlike creature
dropped away again, vanishing smoothly into the sea to
reappear a few moments later a stone's throw back from
the ship. It floated there, mouth glistening, the gills on its
neck bulging and shrinking. Miriamele stared, frozen as if
in a nightmare. Finally she tore her eyes away and forced
herself back from the rail. Young Thures was looking at
her curiously.

"Lady?"

"I'm coming." She followed him, turning to look back
only once. The three heads bobbed in the ship's wake like
fishermen's floats.

Thures left her in the narrow passageway outside
Aspitis' cabin, then vanished back up the ladder, presum-
ably to perform other errands. Miriamele took advantage
of the moment of solitude to compose herself. She could
not shake off the memory of the kilpa's viscous eyes, its
calm and deliberate approach toward the ship. The way it
had stared—almost insolently, as though daring her to try
to stop it. She shuddered.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a series of quiet
clinking noises from the earl's cabin. The door was not
completely closed, so she stepped forward and peered
through the crack.

Aspitis sat at his tiny writing table. A book of some
kind was open before him, its parchment pages reflecting
creamy lamplight. The earl swept two more piles of silver
coins off the table and into a sack, then dropped the clink-
ing bag into an open chest at his feet, which seemed
nearly full with other such sacks. Aspitis then made a no-
tation of some kind in the book.

126 Tad Williams

A board creaked—whether from her weight upon it or
from the movement of the ship Miriamele did not know—
but she moved back hurriedly before Aspitis could look
up and see her in the narrow slit of open doorway. A mo-
ment later, she stepped forward and knocked firmly.

"Aspitis?" She heard him close the book with a muf-
fled thump, then another sound she guessed was the chest
being dragged across the floor.

"Yes, my lady. Come in."

She pushed on the door and walked through, then
closed it gently behind her but did not let the latch fall.
"You asked for me?"

"Sit down, pretty Marya." Aspitis gestured to the bed,
but Miriamele pretended she had not noticed and instead
perched on a stool beside the far wall. One of Aspitis'
hounds rolled aside to make room for her feet, thumped
its heavy tail, then fell asleep again. The earl was wearing
his osprey crest robe, the one she had admired so much at
their first shared supper. Now she looked at the gold-
stitched talons, perfect machines for catching and clutch-
ing, and was filled with remorse for her own foolishness.

Why did I ever let myself become entrapped in these
stupid lies! She would never have told him so, but
Cadrach had been right. If she had said she was only a
commoner, Aspitis might have left her alone; even if he
had forcibly bedded her, at least he would not be planning
to wed her as well.

"I saw three kilpa swimming beside the ship." She
stared at him defiantly, as if he might deny that it was
true. "One swam up alongside and looked like it was go-
ing to climb aboard."

The earl shook his head, but he was smiling. "They
will do no such thing. Lady, do not fear. Not on Eadne
Cloud"

"It touched the ship!" She raised her hand, shaped into
a groping claw. "Like this. It was looking for handholds."

Aspitis' smile faded. He looked grim. "I will go on
deck when we have finished talking, I will put a few ar-
rows into them, the fishy devils. They do not touch my
ship."

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER 127

"But what do the kilpa want?" She could not get the
gray things out of her mind. Also, she was in no hurry to
talk with Aspitis about whatever he was thinking. She
was positive now that no good could come to her out of
any of the earl's plans.

"I do not know what they want, Lady." He wagged his
head impatiently. "Or rather, I do know—food. But there
are many easier ways for the kilpa to catch their meals
than to come onto a ship full of armed men." He stared at
her. "There. I should not have said it. Now you are fright-
ened."

"They eat ... people?"

Aspitis shook his head, this time with greater vehe-
mence. "They eat fish, and sometimes birds that do not
take off swiftly from floating on the water." He absorbed
her skeptical look. "Yes, other things, too, when they can
find them. They have sometimes swarmed small fishing
boats, but nobody knows why for certain. Anyway, it does
not matter. I told you, they will not harm Eadne Cloud.
There is no better sea-watcher than Gan Itai."

Miriamele sat silently for a moment. "I'm sure you're
right," she said at last.

"Good." He stood up, ducking beneath a beam of the
low cabin roof. "I am glad Thures found you—although
you could not go very far on a ship at sea, could you?"
His smile seemed a little harsh. "We have many things to
discuss."

"My lord." She felt a strange sense of lassitude sweep
over her. Perhaps if she did not resist, did not protest, es-
pecially if she did not care, then things would just go on
in this unsatisfactory but impermanent way. She had
promised herself that she would drift, drift....

"We are becalmed," said Aspitis, "but I think that there
will be winds coming soon, far ahead of the storm. With
a little luck, we could be on the island of Spenit tomor-
row night. Think of that, Marya! We will be married
there, in the church sacred to Saint Lavennin."

It would be so easy not to resist, but just to float, like
Eadne Cloud herself, borne slowly along on the wind's

128 Tad Williams

unambitious breath. Surely there would be some chance
to escape when they made landfall at Spenit? Surely?

"My lord," she heard herself saying, "I ... there are
... problems."

"Yes?" The earl cocked his golden head. Miriamele
thought he looked like someone's trained hound, miming
civilization while he sniffed for prey. "Problems?"

She gathered the material of her dress in her damp
hand, then took a deep breath. "I cannot marry you."

Unexpectedly, Aspitis laughed. "Oh, how foolish' Of
course you can! Do you worry about my family? They
will come to love you, even as I have. My brother mar-
ried a Perdruinese woman, and now she is my mother's
favorite daughter. Do not fear!"

"It's not that." She clutched her dress more tightly.
"It's ... it's just that ... there is someone else."

The earl frowned. "What do you mean?"

"I am already promised to someone else. Back
home. And I love him."

"But I asked you! You said to me there was no one.
And you gave yourself to me."

He was angry, but so far he had kept his temper.
Miriamele felt her fear ease somewhat. "I had an argu-
ment with him and refused to marry him; that is why my
father sent me to the convent. But I have realized that I
was wrong. I was unfair to him ... and I was unfair to
you." She detested herself for saying this. It seemed only
a very slight chance that she was truly being unfair to
Aspitis; he had certainly not been over-chivalrous with
her. Still, this was the time to be generous. "But of the
two of you, I loved him first."

Aspitis took a step toward her, his mouth twisting.
There was a strange, trembling tension to his voice. "But
you gave yourself to me."

She lowered her eyes, anxious not to cause offense. "I
was wrong. I hope you will forgive me. I hope that he
will forgive me, although I do not deserve it."

The earl abruptly turned his back on her. His words
were still tight, barely controlled. "And that is that you

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER

129

think? You will just say, 'Farewell, Earl Aspitis!' That is
what you think?"

"I can only rely on your gentleman's honor, my lord."
The little room seemed even smaller. She thought she
could feel the very air tighten, as if the threatening storm
was reaching down for her. "I can only pray for your
kindness and pity."

Aspitis' shoulders began to shake. A low, moaning
noise welled up from him. Miriamele shrunk back against
the wall in horror, half-certain he would turn into a raven-
ing wolf before her eyes, as in some old nurse's tale.

The earl of Eadne and Drina whirled. His teeth were in-
deed bared in a lupine grimace, but he was laughing.

She was stunned. Why is he... ?

"Oh, my lady!" He was barely able to control his
mirth. "You are a clever one!"

"I don't understand," she said frostily. "Do you think
this is funny?"

Aspitis clapped his hands together. The sudden thunder
crack of noise made Miriamele jump. "You are so
clever." He shook his head. "But you are not quite as
clever as you think ... Princess."

"Wh—what?"

He smiled. It was no longer even remotely charming.
"You think quickly and you invent pretty little lies very
well—but I was at your grandfather's funeral, and your
father's coronation as well. You are Miriamele. I knew
that from the first night you joined me at my table."

"You ... you ..." Her mind was full of words, but
none of them made sense. "What... ?"

"I suspected something when you were brought to me."
He reached out a hand and slid it along Miriamele's face
into her hair, his strong fingers clasping her behind the
ear. She sat unmoving, holding her breath. "See," he said,
"your hair is short, but the part closest to your head is
quite golden ... like mine." He chuckled. "Now, a young
noblewoman on her way to a convent might cut her hair
before she got there—but dye it, too, when it was already
such a handsome color? You can be sure I looked at your
face very closely at supper that night. After that, there

130 Tad Williams

was not much difficulty. I had seen you before, if not
closely. It was common knowledge that Elias' daughter
was at Naglimund, and missing after the castle fell." He
snapped his fingers, grinning. "So. Now you are mine,
and we will be married on Spenit, since you might find
some way to escape in Nabban, where you still have fam-
ily." He chortled again, pleased. "Now they will be my
family, too."

It was difficult to speak. "You really want to marry
me?"

"Not because of your beauty, my lady, though you are
a pretty one. And not because I shared your bed. If I had
to marry all the women I have dallied with, I would need
to give my army of wives their own castle, like the
Nascadu desert kings." He sat down on the bedcover,
leaning back until he could rest his head against the cabin
wall. "No, you will be my wife. Then, when your father's
conquests are over and he grows tired at last of Benigaris,
as I did long ago—did you know, after he killed his father
he drank wine and cried all night long' Like a child!—
when your father grows tired of Benigaris, who better to
rule Nabban than the one who found his daughter, fell in
love with her, and brought her back home?" His smile
was a knife-glint. "Me."

She stared at him, her skin turning cold; she almost felt
she could spit venom like a serpent. "And if I tell him
that you kidnapped and dishonored me?"

He shook his head, amused. "You are not so good a
schemer as I thought, Miriamele. Many witnessed you
board my boat with a false name, and saw me pay court
to you, although I had been told you were a minor baron's
daughter. Once it is known that you have been—
dishonored, you said?—do you think your father would
offend a legitimate and high-bom husband? A husband
who is already his ally, and who has done your father
many,"—he reached over and patted his hand against
something Miriamele could not see—"important ser-
vices?"

His bright eyes burned into hers, mocking and im-

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

131

mensety pleased. He was right. There was nothing she
could do to prevent him. He owned her. Owned her.

"I am going." She rose unsteadily.

"Do not cast yourself in the ocean, pretty Miriamele.
My men will be watching to make sure you play no such
tricks. You are far too valuable alive."

She pushed at the door, but it would not open. She was
hollow, empty and hurting as if all the air had been forced
out of her.

"Pull it," Aspitis suggested.

Miriamele staggered out into the corridor. The shad-
owed hall seemed to lurch crazily.

"I will come to your cabin later, my beloved," the earl
called. "Prepare for me."

She was barely off the ladder and onto the deck before
she sank to her knees. She wanted to fall into blackness
and disappear.

*

Tiamak was angry.

He had gone through a great deal for the sake of his
drylander associates—the League of the Scroll, as they
called themselves, although Tiamak sometimes thought
that a group of a half-dozen or so was a bit small to be
called a league. Still, Doctor Morgenes had been a mem-
ber and Tiamak revered the doctor, so he had always done
his best when someone in the league wanted information
that only the little Wrannaman could provide. The
drylanders didn't often need marsh-wisdom, Tiamak had
noticed, but when they did—when, for instance, one of
them needed a sample of twistgrass or Yellow Tinker,
herbs not to be found in any drylander marketplace—they
would scratch off a note to Tiamak quickly enough. Occa-
sionally, as when he had arduously prepared a bestiary of
marsh animals for Dinivan, complete with his own pains-
taking illustrations, or had studied and reported to old
Jamauga which rivers reached the Wran, and what hap-
pened when their fresh water met the salt of the Bay of
Firannos, he would receive a long letter of gratitude from

132 Tad Williams

the recipient—in fact, Jarnauga's letter had so burdened
its carrier that the pigeon's journey had taken twice the
usual time. In these grateful letters. League members
would occasionally hint that someday soon Tiamak might
be officially counted in their number.

Little appreciated by his own villagefolk, Tiamak was
terribly hungry for such recognition. He remembered his
time in Perdruin, the hostility and suspicion he had felt
from the other young scholars, who had been astonished
to find a marsh lad in their midst. If not for Morgenes*
kindness, he would have fled back to the swamps. Still,
beneath Tiamak's diffident exterior, there was more than
a trace of pride. Had he not, after all, been the first
Wrannaman ever to leave the swamplands and study with
the Aedonite brothers? Even his fellow villagers knew
there was no other marsh-dweller like him. Thus, when he
received encouraging words from Scrollbearers, he had
sensed that his time was coming. Some day he would be
a member of the League of the Scroll, the very highest of
scholarly circles, and travel every three years to the home
of one of the other members for a gathering—a gathering
of equals. He would see the world and be a famously
learned man ... or so he had often imagined.

When the hulking Rimmersman Isgrimnur came to
Pelippa's Bowl and gave him the coveted Scrollbearer's
pendant—the golden scroll and feather pen—Tiamak's
heart had soared. All his sacrifices had been worth the re-
ward! But a moment later Duke Isgrimnur had explained
that the pendant came from Dinivan's dying hand, and
when stunned Tiamak had asked about Morgenes,
Isgrimnur gave him the shattering news that the doctor
was dead, too, that he had died almost half a year ago.

A fortnight later, Isgrimnur still did not understand
Tiamak's desperation. He seemed to think that although it
was sad that the two men had died, Tiamak's brooding
melancholy was extreme. But the Rimmersman had
brought no new strategy, no useful advice; he was not, he
admitted, even a member of the League! Isgrimnur did
not seem to comprehend that this left Tiamak—who had
waited many painful weeks for word of what Morgenes

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER

133

planned—terribly adrift, spinning like a flatboat in an
eddy. Tiamak had sacrificed his duty to his people for a
drylander errand—or so it sometimes seemed when he
was angry enough to forget that it had been the crocodile
attack that had forced him to give up his embassy to
Nabban. In any case, he had clearly failed the people of
Village Grove.

Tiamak did have to admit that at least Isgrimnur was
paying for his room and board at a time when the
Wrannaman's own credit had run out. That was some-
thing, anyway—but then again, it was only fair; the
drylanders had made money from the sweat of the
marshfolk for untold years. Tiamak himself had been
threatened, chased, and abused in the markets of Ansis
Pelippe.

Morgenes had rescued him then, but now Morgenes
was dead. Tiamak's own people would never forgive him
for failing them. And Isgrimnur was obsessed with old
Ceallio the doorkeeper, who he claimed was the great
knight Camaris; Isgrimnur no longer seemed to care
whether the little marsh man was alive or dead. Taken all
together, it was clear to Tiamak that he was now as use-
less as a crab with no legs.

He looked up, startled. He had wandered far away from
Pelippa's Bowl into a section of Kwanitupul that he did
not recognize. The water here was even grayer and greas-
ier than usual, dotted with the corpses of fish and
seabirds. The derelict buildings that overlooked the canals
seemed almost to bend beneath the weight of centuries of
grime and salt.

A dizzying sense of bleakness and loss swept over him,

He Who Always Steps on Sand, let me come safely back
to my home again. Let my birds be alive. Let me ...

"Marsh man!" The braying voice interrupted his
prayer. "He's coming!"

Startled, Tiamak looked around. Three young
drylanders dressed in white Fire Dancer robes stood on
the far side of the narrow canal. One of them pushed back
his hood to display a partially shorn head, uncut tufts of

i34

Tad Williams

hair still sticking up like weeds. His eyes, even from a
distance, seemed wrong.

"He's coming!" this one shouted again, his voice
cheerful, as though Tiamak were an old friend-

Tiamak knew who and what these men were; he wanted
no part of their madness. He turned and limped back
along the uneven walkway. The buildings he passed were
boarded up, empty of life.

"Storm King's coming! He'll fix that leg!" On the far
side of the canal, the three Fire Dancers had turned as
well. They paced along directly across from Tiamak,
matching him step for hobbling step, shouting as they
walked. "Haven't you heard yet? Sick and the lame will
be scourged! Fire bum 'em, ice bury *em!"

Tiamak saw a gap in the long wall to his right. He
turned into it, hoping it was not a dead end. The jeers of
the Fire Dancers followed him.

"Where do you go, little brown man? When he comes,
the Storm King will find you if you hide in the deepest
hole or on the highest mountain! Come back and talk with
us or we will come and get you!"

The doorway led into a large open court that might
once have been a ship-building yard, but now contained
only a few castoffs of its vanished owners, a litter of
weather-twisted gray spars, splintered tool handles, and
pieces of shattered crockery. The planks of the courtyard
floor were so warped that when he looked down he could
see long stripes of the muddy canal flowing beneath him.

Tiamak made his way carefully across the dubious
flooring to a door on the far side of the yard, then out
onto another walkway. The cries of the Fire Dancers grew
fainter, but seemed nevertheless to become more fiercely
angry as he quickly strode away-

For a Wrannaman, Tiamak was quite familiar with cit-
ies, but even the residents found it easy to get lost in
Kwanitupul. Few of the buildings remained in use for
long, or even remained standing; the small, select group
of establishments that had existed as long as a century or
two had also changed location a dozen times—the sea air

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER

135

and the murky water chewed away at paint and pilings
alike. Nothing was permanent in Kwanitupul.

After walking for a while Tiamak began to recognize a
few familiar landmarks—the rickety spire of crumbling
Saint Rhiappa's, the bright but decaying paint of the Mar-
ket Hall dome. As his nervousness about being lost and
threatened receded, he began to ponder his dilemma once
more. He was trapped in an unfriendly city. If he wished
to make a living, he must sell his services as a scribe and
translator. This would mean living near the marketplace,
since evening business, especially the small transactions
on which Tiamak made his livelihood, would never wait
until daylight. If he did not work, he was dependent on
the continuing charity of Duke Isgrimnur. Tiamak had no
urge to suffer the hospitality of the dreadful Charystra a
moment longer, and in an attempt to solve this very prob-
lem he had suggested to Isgrimnur that they all move
closer to the market so Tiamak could earn money while
the duke nursed the idiot doorkeeper. The Rimmersman,
however, had been adamant. He was certain there was a
good reason Dinivan had wanted them to wait at
Pelippa's Bowl—although what that reason might be, he
could not say. So, although Isgrimnur did not like the inn-
keeper any more than Tiamak did, he was not ready to
leave.

Tiamak was also worried about whether he was actu-
ally a member of the League of the Scroll. He had appar-
ently been chosen to join, but the members he knew
personally were dead and he had heard nothing from any
of the others for months. What was he supposed to do?

Last, but certainly not the least of his problems, he was
having bad dreams. Or rather, he corrected himself, not
bad dreams so much as odd ones. For the last several
weeks, his sleep had been haunted by an apparition: no
matter what he dreamed, whether it was of being chased
by a crocodile with an eye in every one of its thousand
teeth, or of eating a splendid meal of crab and bottomfish
with his resurrected family in Village Grove, a ghostly
child was present—a little dark-haired drylander girl who
watched everything in utter silence. The child never inter-

136

Tad Williams

fered, whether the dream was frightening or enjoyable,
and in fact seemed somehow even less real than the
dreams themselves. Were it not for the constancy of her
presence from dream to dream, he would have forgotten
her entirely. Lately she seemed to be getting fainter each
time she appeared, as though her image was receding into
the murk of the dreamworld, her message still un-
voiced. ...

Tiamak looked up and saw the barge-loading dock. He
remembered beyond doubt that he had passed it on his
way out. Good. He was back on familiar territory.

So here was another mystery—who or what was this si-
lent child? He tried to remember what Morgenes had told
him of dreams and the Dream Road and what such an ap-
parition might signify, but he could remember nothing
useful. Perhaps she was a messenger from the land of the
dead, a spirit sent by his late mother, wordlessly chastis-
ing him for his failure....

"The little marsh man!"

Tiamak whirled to see the three Fire Dancers standing
on the walkway a few paces behind him. This time, no
canal separated them from him.

The leader stepped forward. His white robe was less
than pristine, smeared with dirty handprints and splotches
of tar, but his eyes were even more frightening than they
had been at a distance, bright and burning as if with some
inner light. His stare seemed almost to jump out of his

face.

"You don't walk very fast, brown man." He grinned,
showing crooked teeth. "Somebody bend your leg, yes?

Bend it bad?"

Tiamak backed up a few steps. The three young men
waited until he stopped, then slouched forward, casually
regaining their proximity. It was clear that they were not
going to let him walk away. Tiamak lowered his hand
onto the hilt of his knife. The bright eyes widened, as
though the slender marsh man proposed a newer and
more interesting game.

"I have done nothing to you," Tiamak said.
The leader laughed soundlessly, skinning his lips back

TO  GREEN   ANGEL  TOWER

137

and showing his red tongue like a dog- "He is coming,
you know. You cannot run from Him."

"Does your Storm King send you to devil innocent
strollers?" Tiamak tried to put strength in his voice. "I
cannot believe that such a being would stoop so low." He
gently eased the knife loose in its sheath.

The leader made a humorous face as he looked to his
fellows. "Ah, he talks good for a little brown man,
doesn't he?" He turned his gleaming eyes back on
Tiamak. "The master wants to see who is fit, who is
strong. It will go hard on the weak when He comes."

Tiamak began to walk backward, hoping either to reach
a place where there might be others to help him—not
very likely in this backwater section of Kwanitupul—or
at least to find a spot where his back would be protected
by a wall and where these three would not have such free-
dom of movement on either side of him. He prayed to
They Who Watch and Shape that he would not stumble.
He would have liked to be able to feel behind him with
his hand, but knew he might need that arm to ward off the
first blow and give himself a chance to draw his knife.

The three Fire Dancers followed him, each face as in-
nocent of consideration as a crocodile's- In fact, Tiamak
thought, trying to make himself brave, he had fought a
crocodile and survived. These beasts were little different,
except that the crocodile would at least have eaten him.
The youths would kill him for pure pleasure, or for some
warped idea of what their Storm King wanted. Even as he
walked backward, locked in a strange death-dance with
his persecutors, even as he desperately sought some place
to make a stand, Tiamka could not help wondering how
the name of a little-known demon legend from the North
should these days be upon the lips of street bullies in
Kwanitupul. Things had changed indeed since he had last
left the swamps.

"Careful, little man." The leader looked past Tia-
mak. "You will fall in and drown."

Startled, Tiamak glanced backward over his shoulder,
expecting to see the unfenced canal just behind him.
When he realized instead that he was at the mouth of a

138 Tad Williams

short alleyway, and that he had been tricked, he turned
back quickly to his pursuers, just in time to avoid the
hurtling downstroke of an iron-tipped cudgel which
crashed against the wooden wall beside him. Splinters
flew.

Tiamak pulled his knife free of the sheath and slashed
at the cudgel-wielding hand, missing but tearing the
sleeve of a white robe. Two Fire Dancers, one of them
waving a tattered sleeve in mockery, moved to either side
of him as the leader took up his own position directly in
front. Tiamak backed into the alley, waving his knife in
an attempt to keep all three at bay. The leader laughed as
he pulled his own cudgel out from beneath his robe. His
eyes were full of a terrifying, guiltless glee.

The youth on the left suddenly made a quiet sound and
disappeared back around the mouth of the alleyway onto
the walkway they had just deserted. Tiamak guessed that
he was serving as lookout while his friends finished with
their victim. An instant later the vanished youth's cudgel
reappeared without its owner, hurtling into the alleyway
and striking the Fire Dancer on Tiamak's right hand,
flinging him against the wall of the alleyway. His head
left a red smear down the planking as he crumpled into a
white-robed heap. As the shaven-headed leader stood,
staring in astonishment, a tall shape stepped into the alley
behind him, grasped him firmly around the neck and then
whipped him through the air and into the walkway rail-
ing, which shattered into flinders as though struck by a
catapult stone. The limp body sagged free of the remnants
of the walkway and tumbled into the canal; then, within
a long, silent moment, it sank out of sight in the oily wa-
ter-

Tiamak discovered he was trembling uncontrollably
with excitement and terror. He looked up into the kind,
slightly confused face of Ceallio, the doorkeeper.

Camaris. The duke said he is Camaris, was Tiamak's
dazed thought. A knight. Sworn to, sworn to ... to save
the innocent.

The old man laid his hand on Tiamak's shoulder and
led him back out of the alleyway.

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

139

That night the Wrannaman dreamed of white-shrouded
figures with eyes that were flaming wheels. They came at
him across the water like sails flapping. He was splashing
in one of the sidestreams of the Wran, desperate to es-
cape, but something held his leg. The more he struggled,
the harder it became to keep afloat.

The little dark-haired girl watched him from the bank,
solemn and silent. She seemed so faint this time that he
could hardly see her, as though she were made of mist.
Eventually, before the dream ended and he woke up gasp-
ing, she faded entirely.

A

Diawen the scryer had made her cave in the mountain's
depths into something very much like the small house she
had once inhabited on the outskirts of Hernysadharc,
close by the Circoille fringe. The small cavern was closed
off from its neighbors by woolen shawls hung across the
doorway. When Maegwin gently tugged one of the cur-
taining shawls aside, a wave of sweetish smoke billowed
out.

The dream of flickering lights had been so vivid and so
obviously important that Maegwin had found it difficult
to go about her business all morning. Although her peo-
ple's needs were many, and she had done her best to sat-
isfy them, she had moved all day in a kind of fog, far
away in her heart and mind even as she touched the trem-
bling hands of an old person or took one of the children
in her arms.

Diawen had been a priestess of Mircha many years ago,
but had broken her vows—no one knew why, or at least
no one could say for certain, though speculation was
constant—then left the Order to live by herself. She had
a reputation as a madwoman, but was also known for
true-telling, for dream-reading and healing. Many a trou-
bled citizen of Hernysadharc, after leaving a bowl of fruit
and a coin for Brynioch or Rhynn, waited until after dark
and then went to Diawen for more immediate assistance.

140 Tad Williams

Maegwin remembered seeing her once in the market near
the Taig, her long, pale brown hair fluttering like a pen-
nant. Maegwin's nurse had quickly pulled her away, as
though even looking at Diawen might be dangerous.

So, faced with a powerful but confusing dream, and
having made a grave mistake in her last interpretation,
Maegwm had this time decided to seek help. If anyone
would understand the things that were happening to her,
she felt sure, it was Diawen.

For all the smoky haze that hung thick as Inniscrich
fog, the inside of the scryer's cave was surprisingly neat.
She had carefully arranged the few possessions saved
from her home in Hemysadharc, a collection of shiny
things that might have aroused the envy of a nesting mag-
pie. Dozens of gleaming bead necklaces hung on the
cave's rough walls and caught the light of the fire like
dew-spotted spiderwebs. Small mounds of shiny
baubles—mostly beads of metal and polished stone—
were arranged on the flat rock that was Diawen's table. In
various niches around the chamber stood the equally
shiny tools of the scryer's craft, mirrors ranging in size
from a serving tray to a thumbnail, made of polished
metal or costly glass, some round, some square, some el-
liptical as a cat's eye. Maegwin was fascinated to see so
many in one place. A child of a rustic court, where a la-
dy's hand mirror was, after her reputation, perhaps her
most cherished possession, she had never seen anything
like it.

Diawen had been beautiful once, or so everyone always
said. It was hard to tell now. The scryer's upturned brown
eyes and wide mouth were set in a gaunt, weathered face.
Her hair, still exceptionally long and full, had turned a
very ordinary iron gray. Maegwin thought she looked like
nothing more than a thin woman growing old fast.

Diawen smiled mockingly. "Ah, little Maegwin. Come
for a love dram, have you? If it's the count you're after,
you'll have to heat his blood first or the charm won't
take. He's a careful one, he is."

Maegwin's initial surprise was quickly overtaken by
shock and rage. How could this woman know of her feel-

TO  GREEN   ANGEL  TOWER

141

ings for Eolair? Did everyone know? Was she the object
of laughter at every cookfire? For a moment, her deep
sense of responsibility for her father's subjects evapo-
rated. Why should she fight to save such a pack of snig-
gering ingrates?

"Why do you say that?" she snapped. "What makes
you think I love anyone?"

Diawen laughed, untouched by Maegwin's anger. "I am
the one who knows- That is what I do, king's daughter."

For a long moment, her eyes smarting from the cling-
ing smoke and her pride stinging from Diawen's bold as-
sessment, Maegwin wanted only to turn and leave. At
last, her sensible side took charge. There might be loose
talk about Lluth's daughter, certainly—as Old Craobhan
had pointed out, there always was. And Diawen was just
the type to prowl about listening for valuable castoffs—
useful little facts that, when polished up and then cun-
ningly disclosed, would make her prophesying seem more
uncanny. But if Diawen was the type to rely on such
trickery, would she be any use to Maegwin's current
need?

As if sensing her thoughts, Diawen gestured for her to
take a seat on a smooth lump-of stone covered with a
shawl and said; "I have heard talk, it's true. No magical
arts were needed to reveal your feelings for Count
Eolair—just seeing you together once taught me all I
needed to know. But there is more to Diawen than keen
ears and sharp eyes." She poked at the fire and set sparks
to hopping, unleashing another billow of yellowish
smoke, then turned a calculating look upon Maegwin.
"What do you want, then?"

When Maegwin told her that she wished the scryer's
help interpreting a dream, Diawen became quite business-
like. She refused Maegwin's offers of food or clothing.
"No, king's daughter," she said with a hard smile, "I will
help you now and you will owe me a favor. That will suit
me better. Agreed?"

After being assured that the favor was not to be repaid
with her firstborn son, or with her shadow, or soul, or
voice, or any other such thing, she consented.

142

Tad Williams

"Do not fret," Diawen chuckled, "This is no fireplace
tale. No, someday I will simply want help ... and you
will give it. You are a child of Hern's House and I am
only a poor scryer, yes? That is my reason."

Maegwin told Diawen the substance of the dream, and
of the other strange things she had dreamed in the months
before, as well as what had happened when she let the vi-
sions lead her down into the earth with Eolair.

The smoke in the little chamber was so thick that when
she finished telling of Mezutu'a and its denizens, she had
to step out past the hanging for a while to breathe. Her
head had begun to feel very strange, as if it were floating
free of her body, but a few moments out in the main cav-
ern restored her to clear-mindedness.

"That story is almost payment enough, king's daugh-
ter," the scryer said when Maegwin returned. "1 had heard
the rumors, but did not know whether to believe them.
The dwarrow-folk alive in the earth below us!" She made
a strange hooking gesture with her fingers. "Of course, I
have always thought there was something more to the
Grianspog tunnels than just the dead past."

Maegwin frowned. "But what about my dream? About
the 'high place*—about how the time has come."

Diawen nodded. The scryer crawled to the wall on her
hands and knees. She ran her fingers over several of the
mirrors, then at last selected one and brought it back to
the fireside- It was small, set in a wooden frame gone
nearly black from untold years of handling.

"My grandmother used to call this a 'wormglass,' "
Diawen said, holding it out for Maegwin's inspection. It
looked like a very ordinary mirror, the carving worn
down until it was almost completely smooth.

"A wormglass? Why?"

The scryer shrugged her bony shoulders. "Perhaps in
the days of Drochnathair and the other great worms, it
was used to watch for their approach. Or perhaps it was
made from the claws or the teeth of a worm." She
grinned, as though to show that she herself, despite her
livelihood, did not hold with such superstition. "Most

TO  GREEN  ANGEL TOWER

143

likely the frame was once carved to look like a dragon.
Still, it is a good tool."

She held the mirror above the flames, moving it in slow
circles for a long while. When at last she turned it upright
once more, a thin film of soot covered its surface. Diawen
held it up before Maegwin's face; the reflection was ob-
scured, as though by fog. "Think of your dream, then
blow."

Maegwin tried to fix in her mind the strange proces-
sion, the beautiful but alien figures. A tiny cloud of soot
puffed from the mirror's face.

Diawen turned the glass around and studied it, biting
her lower lip as she concentrated. With the firelight di-
rectly below her, her face seemed even thinner, almost
skeletal. "It is strange," the scryer said finally. "I can see
patterns, but they are all unfamiliar to me. It is as though
someone is speaking loudly in a house nearby, but in a
tongue I have never heard before." Her eyes narrowed.
"Something is wrong, here, king's daughter. Are you sure
this was your own dream and not one that someone told
to you?" When Maegwin angrily reaffirmed her owner-
ship, Diawen frowned. "I can tell you little, and nothing
from the mirror."

"What does that mean?"

"The mirror is as good as silent. It is speaking, but I do
not understand. So, then, I will release you from your
promise to me, but I will also tell you something—give
you my own advice." Her voice implied that this would
be just as good as whatever the mirror might have told
them- "If the gods truly mean for this to be made clear to
you, do what they say." She briskly wiped the mirror
clean with a white cloth and set it back into its niche in
the cavern wall.

"What is that?"

Diawen pointed up, as though at the ceiling of the cave.
"Go to the high place."

Maegwin felt her boots sliding on snow-slicked rock
and flung out a gloved hand to catch a prong of stone be-
side the steep path. She bent her knees and edged her feet

144 Tad Williams

under her body until she had regained her balance, then
stood straight once more, looking back down the white
hillside at the dangerous distance she had already
climbed. A slip here could easily topple her off the nar-
row path; after that, nothing would stop her tumble down
the slope but the tree trunks that would dash out her
brains long before she reached the bottom.

She stood panting, and found to her mild surprise that
she was not very frightened. Such a fall would certainly
end in death one way or another—either immediately, or
by leaving her crippled on a snowy mountain in the
Grianspog—but Maegwin was giving her life back into
the hands of the gods: what difference could it make if
they decided to take her now rather than later? Besides, it
was glorious to be out beneath the sky again, no matter
how cold and grim it might be.

She shuffled a little farther toward the outside edge of
the trail and turned her gaze upward. Almost half the
height of the hill still loomed between Maegwin and her
destination—Bradach Tor, which jutted from me pinnacle
like the prow of a stone ship, its underside blackly naked
of the snow that blanketed the slopes. If she went hard at
it, she should reach the summit before the weak morning
sun, which now shone full in her face, had climbed far
past noon.

Maegwin shouldered her pack and turned her attention
back to the path, noting with satisfaction that the flutter-
ing snow had already erased most of the marks of her re-
cent passage. At the base of the hill where she had begun,
the tracks had no doubt been completely obliterated. If
any of Skali's Rimmersmen came sniffing around this
part of the Grianspog, there would be no sign she had
been here. The gods were doing their share. That was a
good sign.

The steep path forced her to make most of the ascent
leaning forward, grasping at the handholds that presented
themselves. She felt a small, sour pride at the strength of
her body, at the way her muscles stretched and knotted,
pulling her up the slope just as swiftly as most men could
climb. Maegwin's height and strength had always been

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER

145

more of a curse to her than a blessing. She knew how un-
womanly most thought her, and had spent most of her life
pretending not to care. But still, it was somehow very sat-
isfying to feel her capable limbs work for her. Sadly, it
was her body itself that was the greatest impediment to
her given task. Maegwin felt sure she would be able to let
it go if she had to, although it would not be easy, but it
had been even harder to turn against Eolair, to pretend a
contempt for him that was the opposite of her feelings.
Stilt, she had done it, however sick it made her feet.
Sometimes doing the gods' bidding required a hardened
heart.

The climb did not get easier. The snowy path that she
followed was really little more than an animal track. In
many places it vanished altogether, forcing her to make
her way awkwardly over outcroppings of stone, trusting
tangles of leafless heather or the branches of wind-twisted
trees to hold her weight until she could haul herself up to
another area of relative safety.

She made several stops to catch her breath, or to
squeeze her sodden gloves dry and rub the feeling back
into her fingers. The clouded «un was well into the west-
ern sky by the time she clambered up the last rise and
found herself atop Bradach Tor. She scraped away snow,
then slumped down in a heap on the black, wind-polished
rock.

The forested skirts of the Grianspog spread below her.
Beyond the mountain's base, hidden from her eyes by
swirling snow, stood Hemysadharc, the ancestral home of
Maegwin's family. There, Skali the usurper strode the
oaken halls of the Taig and his reavers swaggered through
Hemysadharc's white-clad streets. Something had to be
done; apparently it was something only the daughter of
the king could do.

She did not rest long. The heat generated by her exer-
tion was being rapidly sucked away by the wind, and she
was growing chilled. She emptied her pack, pouring all
the possessions she thought she would need in this world
onto the black stone. She wrapped herself in the heavy

146 Tad Williams

blanket, trying not to dwell childishly on how the onset of
night might deepen the already unpleasant cold. Her
leather sack of flints and her striking stone she put to one
side: she would have to clamber back off the tor to find
some firewood.

Maegwin had brought no food, not only to show trust
in the gods, but also because she was tired of acceding to
her body's demands. The flesh she inhabited could not
live without meals, without love—in truth, it was the low
clay of which she was made that had confused her with
its constant need for food and warmth and the good will
of others. Now it was time to let such earthy things fall
away so that the gods could see her essence.

There were two articles nestled in the bottommost folds
of her sack. The first was a gift from her father, a carved
wooden nightingale, emblem of the goddess Mircha. One
day, when a younger Maegwin had cried inconsolably
over some childhood disappointment. King Lluth had
stood and plucked the graceful bird from the rafters of the
Taig where it hung among the myriad of other god-
carvings, then put it into her small hands. It was all that
she had left to remind her of how things had been, of
what had been lost. After pressing it for a moment against
her cold cheeks, she set it on a rounded outcropping of
stone where it rocked in the brisk wind.

The last treasure in the bag was the stone that Eolair
had given her, the dwarrow's gift. Maegwin frowned,
rolling the strange object between her palms. She had pre-
tended that the reason she packed it was because she had
been holding it when she had the god-sent dream, but re-
ally she knew better. The count had given it to her, then
he had ridden away.

Tired and stupefied from her climb, Maegwin stared at
the stone and her name-rune until her head hurt. It was a
perfectly useless thing—her name given a sort of false
immortality, as much of a cheat as the great stone city be-
neath the ground. All things of the heavy earth were sus-
pect, she now understood.

At the gods' own clear urging, she had come to this
high place. This time, Maegwin had decided, she would

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER                           147

let the gods do what they wished, not struggle to antici-
pate them. If they wanted to bring her to stand before
them, then she would plead for salvation of her folk and
the destruction of Skali and the High King, the bestial
pair who had brought such humiliation on a blameless
people; if the gods did not wish to help her, she would
die. But no matter the ultimate result, she would sit here
atop the tor until the gods made their wishes known.

"Brynioch Sky-lord!" she shouted into the wind.
"Mircha cloaked in rain! Murhagh Armless, and bold
Rhynn! I have heard your call! I await your judgment!"

Her words were swallowed up in gray and swirling
white.

*

Waiting, Miriamele fought against sleep, but Aspitis
hovered on the edge of wakefulness for a long time,
mumbling and shifting on the bed beside her. She found
it very hard to keep her own thoughts fixed- When the
knock came on her cabin door, she was floating in a sort
of a half-slumber, and did not at first realize what the
noise was.

The knock came again, a little louder. Startled,
Minamele rolled over. "Who is it?" she hissed. It must be
Gan Itai, she decided—but what would the earl mink
about the Niskie visiting Miriamele in her room? A sec-
ond thought followed swiftly: she did not want Gan Itai to
see Aspitis here in her bed. Miriamele had no illusions
about what the Niskie knew, but even in her wretchedness
she wished to preserve some tiny fragments of self-
respect.

"Is the master there?" The voice, to both her shame and
relief, was male—one of the sailors.

Aspitis sat up in bed beside her. His lean body was un-
pleasantly warm against her skin. "What is it?" he asked,
yawning.

"Pardon, my lord. You're needed by the helmsman.
That is, he begs your pardon, and asks for you. He thinks
he sees storm signs. Odd ones."

Tad Williams

The earl sagged onto his back once more. "By the
Blessed Mother! What is the hour, man?"

"The Lobster's just gone over the horizon. Lord
Aspitis. Mid-watch, four hours till dawn. Very sorry, my
lord."

Aspitis swore again, then reached down to the cabin
floor for his boots. Although he must have known that
Miriamele was awake, he did not say a word to her.
Miriamele saw the sailor's bearded face etched in lamp-
light when the door opened, then listened as the two sets
of footsteps passed down the corridor to the deck ladder.

She lay in the darkness for dragging minutes, listening
to her own heartbeat, which was louder than the still-
becalmed ocean. It was plain that all the sailors knew
where Aspitis was—they expected to find the earl in his
doxy's bed! Shame choked her. For a moment she thought
of poor Cadrach down in the shadowed hold. He was
bound by iron chains, but were her own fetters any more
comfortable for being invisible?

Miriamele could not imagine how she could ever again
walk across the deck under the eyes of those grinning
sailors—could not imagine it any more than she could
imagine standing naked before them. It was one thing to
be suspected, another to be part of the casual knowledge
shared by the entire ship: when he was needed in the
night watches, Aspitis could be found in her bed. This lat-
est degradation seemed to creep over her like a heavy,
numbing chill. How could she ever leave the cabin again?
And even if she did, what did she have to look forward to
in any case but a forced marriage to the golden-haired
monstrosity? She would rather be dead.

In the dark, Miriamele made a small noise. Slowly, as
if approaching a dangerous animal, she considered this
last idea for a moment—it was stunning in its power,
even as an unvoiced thought. She had promised herself
that she could outlast anything, that she could float with
any tide and lie happily beneath the sun on whatever
beach received her—but was it true? Could she even
marry Aspitis, who had made her his whore, who had
aided in murdering her uncle and was a willing catspaw

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

149

of Pryrates? How could a girl—no, a woman now, she re-
flected ruefully—how could a woman with the blood of
Prester John in her veins allow such a thing to happen to
her?

But if the life that stretched before her was so unbear-
able that death seemed preferable, then she need be afraid
no longer. She could do anything.

Miriamele slipped from the bed. After dressing quickly.
she edged out into the narrow passageway.

Miriamele climbed the ladder as quietly as she could,
lifting her head above the hatchway just far enough to
make sure that Aspitis was still talking to the helmsman.
They seemed to be having a very animated discussion,
waving their lamps so that the flaming wicks left streaks
across the black sky. Miriamele dropped down to the pas-
sageway as quickly as she could. A kind of cold clever-
ness had come over her along with her new resolution,
and she moved quietly and surely along the corridor to
Aspitis' doorway. When she had slipped through the door
and closed it behind her, she took the hood off her lamp.

A quick examination of Aspitis' room turned up noth-
ing useful. The earl's sword lay across his bed like some
heathen wedding token, a slim, beautifully wrought blade
with a hilt in the shape of a spread-winged seahawk. It
was the earl's favorite possession—except perhaps for
her, Miriamele thought grimly—but it was not what &he
sought. She began to investigate a little more thoroughly,
checking the folds of all his clothing, rummaging througi'i
the caskets in which he kept his jewelry and gaming-dice
Although she knew that time was growing ever shorter,
she forced herself to refold each garment and lay it back
where it had been. It would do her cause no good to alert
Aspitis.

When she had finished, Miriamele stared around the
cabin in frustration, unwilling to believe that she could
simply fail. Abruptly, she remembered the chest into
which she had seen Aspitis pushing bags of money.
Where had that gone? She dropped down onto her knees
and pushed aside the bed's hanging coverlet. The chest
was there, draped by Aspitis* second-best cloak- Certain

150 Tad Williams

that any moment the Earl of Eadne and Drina would walk
through the door, Miriamele forced herself under the bed
and dragged it out into the light, wincing at the loud
scraping as its metal corners cut into the plank floor.

The chest was, as she had seen, full of bags of money.
The coins were mostly silver, but each sack contained
more than a few gold Imperators as well. It was a small
fortune, but Miriamele knew that Aspitis and his family
were the possessors of a very large fortune beside which
this was a mere handful. She carefully lifted out a few of
the sacks, trying to keep them from jingling, noting with
some interest that her hands, which should have been
shaking, were as steady as stone. Hidden beneath the top
row of sacks was a leather-bound ledger. It contained lists
in Aspitis1 surprisingly fastidious handwriting of places
the Eadne Cloud had stopped—Vinitta and Grenamman,
as well as other names that Miriamele decided must have
been ports visited on other voyages; beside each entry
was a line of cryptic markings. Miriamele could make no
sense of it, and after a moment's impatient study she put
it aside. Beneath the ledger, rolled into a bundle, was a
hooded robe of coarse white cloth—but this was not what
she was looking for either. The trunk contained no further
secrets, so she repacked it as well as she could, then
pushed it back beneath the bed.

Time was running short. Miriamele sat on the floor, full
of a dreadful, cold hatred. Perhaps it would be easiest just
to slip up on deck and throw herself into the ocean. It was
hours until dawn; no one would know where she had
gone until it was too late to stop her. But she thought of
the kilpa, patiently waiting, and could not imagine joining
them in the black seas.

As she stood, she saw it at last. It had been hanging on
a hook behind the door all along. She took it down and
slipped it into her belt beneath her cloak, then stepped
into the doorway. When she was certain that no one was
coming, she hooded her lamp and made her way back to
her own cabin.

Miriamele was crawling under her blanket when she
suddenly understood the significance of the white robe. In

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER

15'

her oddly detached state, this realization was only one
more tally added to the earl's overloaded account, but it
helped to stiffen her resolve. She lay unmoving, breathing
quietly, waiting for Aspitis' return, her mind set on her
course so firmly that she would not allow any thoughts to
distract her—not memories of her childhood and her
friends, not regrets about the places she would never see-
Her ears brought her every creak of the ship's timbers and
every slap of the waves on the hull, but as the trudging
hours passed, his booted footsteps never sounded in the
passageway. Her door did not creak open. Aspitis did not
come.

At last, as dawn was glimmering in the sky above-
decks, she fell into a heavy, muddy sleep with the earl's
dagger still clutched in her fist.

She felt the hands that shook her, and heard the quiet
voice, but her mind did not want to return to the waking
world.

"Girl, wake up!"

At last, groaning, Miriamele rolled over and opened her
eyes. Gan Itai peered down at her, a look of concern fur-
rowing her already wrinkled brow. Morning light from
the hatch in the passageway outside spilled in through the
open door. The achingly painful memories of the day be-
fore, absent for the first few moments, rolled back over
her.

"Go away," she told the Niskie. She tried to push her
head back under the blanket, but Gan Itai's strong hands
clutched her and pulled her upright.

"What is this I hear on deck? The sailors are saying
that Earl Aspitis is to be married on Spenit—married to
you! Is that true?"

Miriamele covered her eyes with her hands, trying to
keep out the light. "Has the wind come up?"

Gan Itai's voice was puzzled. "No, we are still be-
calmed. Why do you ask such a strange question?"

"Because if we can't get there, he can't marry me,"
Miriamele whispered.

152

Tad Williams

The Niskie shook her head. "By the Uncharted, then it
is true! Oh, girl, this is not what you want, is it?"

Miriamele opened her eyes. "I would rather be dead."

Gan Itai made a little humming noise of dismay. She
helped Miriamele to get her feet out of bed and onto the
floor, then brought over the small mirror that Aspitis had
given to Miriamele when he had still been pretending
kindness.

"Do you not wish to brush your hair straight?" the
Niskie asked. "It looks rumpled and windblown, and that
is not how you like it, I think."

"I don't care," she said, but the look on Gan Itai's face
touched her: the sea-watcher could think of no other way
to help. She reached out her hand for the mirror. The hilt
of Aspitis' dagger, which had been covered in the folds of
blanket, caught in her sleeve and clattered onto the floor.
Both Miriamele and the old Niskie stared at it for a mo-
ment. Suddenly, chillingly, Miriamele saw her one door
of escape closing. She leaped from the bed to grab it, but
Gan Itai had bent first. The Niskie held it up to the light,
a look of surprise in her gold-flecked eyes.

"Give it to me," said Miriamele.

Gan Itai gazed at the silver osprey carved so that it
seemed to be alighting on the dagger's pommel. "This is
the earl's knife."

"He left it here," she lied. "Give it to me."

The Niskie turned to her, solemn-faced. "He did not
leave it here. He only wears this with his best clothes, and
I saw how he was dressed when he came on deck in the
night. In any case, he was wearing his other dagger on his
belt."

"He gave it to me as a present, a gift...." Abruptly,
she burst into tears, great convulsive sobs that shook her
whole body. Gan Itai jumped up in alarm and pushed the
cabin door shut.

"I hate him!" Miriamele moaned, rocking from side to
side. Gan Itai curled a thin dry arm around her shoulders.
"I hate him!"

"What are you doing with his knife?" When she re-
ceived no answer, she asked again. "Tell me, girl."

TO  GREEN   ANGEL  TOWER

153

"I'm going to kill him." Miriamele found strength in
saying it; for a moment, her tears subsided. "I'm going to
stab that whoremongering beast, and then I won't care
what happens."

"No, no, this is madness," the Niskie said, frowning.

"He knows who I am, Gan Itai." Miriamele gulped air.
It was hard to speak. "He knows I am the princess, and he
says he will marry me ... so he can be master of Nabban
when my father has conquered all the world." The idea
seemed unreal, yet what could prevent it from happening?
"Aspitis helped kill my uncle Leobardis, too. And he is
giving money to the Fire Dancers."

"What do you mean?" Gan Itai's eyes were intent.
"The Fire Dancers, they are madmen."

"Maybe, but he has a chest filled with sacks of silver
and gold, and there is a book that lists payments made.
He also has a Fire Dancer's robe rolled up and hidden
away. Aspitis would never wear such a coarse weave." It
had been so clear, suddenly, so laughably obvious: Aspitis
would die before wearing something so common ... un-
less there was a reason. And to think she had once been
impressed by his beautiful clothes! "I am certain he goes
among them. Cadrach said that he does Pryrates* bid-
ding."

Gan Itai lifted her arm from Miriamele's shoulder and
sat back against the wall. In the silence, the sound of men
moving about on deck drifted down through the cabin
ceiling, "The Fire Dancers burned down part of
Niskietown in Nabban," the old woman said slowly.
"They wedged doors shut, with children and old ones in-
side. They have burned and slaughtered in other places
where my people live, too. And the Duke of Nabban and
other men do nothing. Nothing." She ran her hand
through her hair. "The Fire Dancers always claim some
reason, but in truth there never is a reason, just love of
other folks' suffering. Now you say that my ship's master
is bringing them gold."

"It doesn't matter. He'll be dead before landfall."

Gan Itai shook her head in what looked like astonish-
ment. "Our old masters put Ruyan the Navigator into

154

Tad Williams

chains. Our new masters bum our children, and ravage
and kill their own young as well." She put a cool hand on
Miriamele's arm and left it there for a long time. Her up-
turned eyes narrowed in thought. "Hide the knife," she
said at last. "Do not use it until I speak to you again."
"But ..." Miriamele began. Gan Itai squeezed hard.
"No," the Niskie said harshly. "Wait! You must wait!"
She stood and walked out of the room. When the door
shut behind her, Miriamele was left alone, tears drying on
her cheeks.

Wastctawt of Dreams

Tne SRy was filled with swirling streamers of gray. A
thicker knot of clouds loomed like an upraised fist on the
distant northern horizon, angry purple and black.

The weather had gone bitterly cold again. Simon was
very grateful for his thick new wool shirt. It had been a
present from a thin New Gadrinsett girl, one of the two
young women who had attached themselves to him at his
knighthood feast. When the girl and her mother had come
to bestow the gift, Simon had been properly polite and
thankful as he imagined a knight should be. He just hoped
they didn't think he was going to marry the girl or some-
thing. He had met her half a dozen times now, but she had
still said scarcely anything to him, although she giggled a
lot. It was nice to be admired, Simon had decided, but he
couldn't help wishing that someone was doing the admir-
ing besides this silly girl and her equally silly friend. Still,
the shirt was well-made and warm.

"Come, Sir Knight," Sludig said, "are you going to use
that stick, or are we going to give up for the day? I'm as
tired and frozen as you are."

Simon looked up. "Sorry. Just thinking. It is cold, isn't
it?"

"It is seeming our short taste of summer has come to
its ending," Binabik called from his seat on a fallen pillar.
They were in the middle of the Fire Garden, with no shel-
ter from the brisk, icy wind.

"Summer!?" Sludig snorted. "Because it stopped

156

Tad Williams

snowing for a fortnight? There is still ice in my beard ev-
ery morning."

"It has been, in any case, an improvement of weather
over what we were suffering before," said Binabik se-
renely. He tossed another pebble at Qantaqa, who was
curled in a furry loop on the ground a few steps away,
She peered at him sideways, but then, apparently deciding
that an occasional pebble was not worth the trouble of
getting up and biting her master, closed her yellow eyes
once more. Jeremias, who sat beside the troll, watched the
wolf apprehensively.

Simon picked up his wooden practice sword once more
and moved forward across the tiles. Although Sludig was
still unwilling to use real blades, he had helped Simon
lash bits of stone to the wooden ones so that they were
more truly weighted. Simon hefted his carefully, trying to
find the balance. "Come on, then," he said.

The Rimmersman waded forward against the surging
wind, heavy tunic flapping, and brought his sword around
in a surprisingly quick two-handed swipe. Simon stepped
to one side, deflecting Sludig's blow upward, then re-
turned his own counterstroke. Sludig blocked him; the
echo of wood smacking wood floated across the tiles.

They practiced on for most of an hour as the shrouded
sun passed overhead. Simon was finally beginning to feel
comfortable with a sword in his hand: his weapon often
felt as though it were part of his arm, as Sludig was al-
ways saying it should. It was mostly a question of bal-
ance, he now realized—not just swinging a heavy object,
but moving with it, letting his legs and back supply the
force and letting his own momentum carry him through
into the next defensive position, rather than flailing at his
opponent and then leaping away again.

As they sparred, he thought of shent, the intricate game
of the Sithi, with its feints and puzzling strikes, and won-
dered if the same things might work in swordplay. He al-
lowed his next few strokes to carry him farther and
farther off-balance, until Sludig could not help but notice;

then, when the Rimmersman swept in on the heels of one
of Simon's flailing misses with the aim of catching him

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

157

leaning too far and smacking him along the ribs, Simon
let his swing carry him all the way forward into a tum-
bling roll. The Rimmersman's wooden sword hissed over
him. Simon then righted himself and whacked Sludig
neatly on the side of his knee. The northerner dropped his
blade and hopped up and down, cursing.

"Ummu Bok! Very good, Simon!" Binabik shouted. "A
surprising movement." Beside him, Jeremias was grin-
ning.

"That hurt." Sludig rubbed his leg, "But it was a clever
thought. Let us stop before our fingers are too numb to
hold the hilts."

Simon was very pleased with himself. "Would that
work in a real battle, Sludig?"

"Perhaps. Perhaps not if you are wearing armor. Then
you might go down like a turtle and not be able to get up
in time- Be very sure before you ever leave your feet, or
you will be more dead than you are clever. Still, it was
well done." He straightened up. "The blood is freezing in
my veins. Let us go down to the forges and warm up."

Freosel, New Gadrinsett's young constable, had put
several of the settlers to work building a smithy in one of
the airier caves. They had taken to the task briskly and ef-
ficiently, and were now melting down what little scrap
metal could be found on Sesuad'ra, hoping to forge new
weapons and repair the old ones.

"The forges, for warming," Binabik agreed. He clicked
his tongue at Qantaqa, who rose and stretched.

As they walked, shy Jeremias dropped behind until he
trailed them by several paces- The wind blew cuttingly
across the Fire Gardens, and the sweat on the back of Si-
mon's neck was icy. He found his buoyant mood settling
somewhat. "Binabik," he asked suddenly, "why couldn't
we go to Hemystir with Count Eolair and Isom?" That
pair had departed the previous day in the gray of early
morning, accompanied by a small honor guard made up
mostly of Thrithings horsemen.

"I am thinking that the reasons Josua gave you were
true ones," Binabik replied- "It is not good for the same
people always to be having the risks—or gaining the glo-

Tad Williams

ries." He made a wry face. "There will be enough for all
to do in coming days."

"But we brought him Thom. Why shouldn't we try to
at least get Minneyar as well—or Bright-Nail, rather?"

"Just because you are a knight, boy, does not mean you
will have your way all the time," Sludig snarled. "Count
your good fortunes and be content. Content and quiet."

Taken by surprise, Simon turned to the Rimmersman.
"You sound angry."

Sludig looked away. "Not me- I am only a soldier."

"And not a knight." Simon thought he understood.
"But you know why that is, Sludig. Josua is not king. He
can only knight his own Erkynlanders. You are Duke
Isgrimnur's man. I'm sure he will honor you when he re-
turns."

"If he returns." There was bitterness in Sludig's voice.
"I am tired of talking about this."

Simon thought carefully before speaking. "We all know
what part you played, Sludig. Josua told everyone—but
Binabik and I were there and we will never forget." He
touched the Rimmersman's arm. "Please don't be angry
with me. Even if I am a knight, I am still the same moon-
calf you've been teaching how to swing a sword. I am
still your friend."

Sludig peered at him for a moment from beneath bushy
yellow brows. "Enough," he said. "You are a mooncalf
indeed, and I need something to drink."

"And a warm fire." Simon tried not to smile.

Binabik, who had listened to the exchange in silence,
nodded solemnly.

Geloe was waiting for them at the edge of the Fire Gar-
den. She was bundled up against the cold, a scarf
wrapped about her face so that only her round yellow
eyes showed. She raised a chill-reddened hand as they ap-
proached.

"Binabik. I wish you and Simon to join me just before
sundown, at the Observatory." She gestured to the ruined
shell several hundred paces to the west. "I need your as-
sistance."

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER

159

"Help from a magical troll and a dragon-slaying
knight," Sludig's smile was not entirely convincing.

Geloe turned her raptor's stare on him. "It is no honor.
Besides, Rimmersman, even if you could, I don't think
you would wish to walk the Road of Dreams. Not now."

"The Dream Road?" Simon was startled. "Why?"

The witch woman waved toward the ugly boil of
clouds in the northern sky. "Another storm is coming. Be-
sides wind and snow, it will also bring closer the mind
and hand of our enemy. The dream-path grows ever risk-
ier and soon may be impossible." She tucked her hands
back beneath her cloak. "We must use the time we have."
Geloe turned and walked away toward the ocean of rip-
pling tents, "Sundown!" she called.

"Ah," said Binabik after a moment's silence. "Still,
there is time for the wine and the hand-warming we were
discussing. Let us go to the forges with haste." He started
away. Qantaqa bounded after him.

Jeremias said something that could not be heard over
the rising voice of the wind. Simon stopped to let him
catch up.

"What?"

The squire bobbed his heaA "I said that Leieth wasn't
with her. When Geloe goes out to walk, Leieth always
walks with her. I hope she's well."

Simon shrugged. "Let's go and get warm."

They hurried after the retreating forms of Binabik and
Sludig. Far ahead, Qantaqa was a gray shadow in the
waving grass.

Simon and Binabik stepped through the doorway into
the lamplit Observatory. Beyond the sundered roof, twi-
light made the sky seem a bowl of blue glass. Geloe was
absent, but the Observatory was not empty: Leieth sat on
a length of crumbled pillar, her thin legs drawn up be-
neath her. She did not even turn her head at their en-
trance. The child was usually withdrawn, but there was
something about the quality of her stillness that alarmed
Simon. He approached and spoke her name softly, but al-
though her eyes were open, fixed on the sky overhead,

i6o Tad Williams

she had the slack muscles and slow breath of one who
slept.

"Do you think she's sick?" Simon asked. "Maybe
that's why Geloe asked us to come." Despite worry over
Leieth, he felt a glimmering of relief: thoughts of travel-
ing the Dream Road made him anxious. Even though he
had reached the safety of Sesuad'ra, his dreams had con-
tinued to be vivid and unsettling.

The troll felt the child's warm hand, then let it drop
back into her lap. "Little there is that we could do for her
that Geloe could not be doing better. We will wait with
patientness." He turned and looked around the wide, cir-
cular hall. "I am thinking this was a very beautiful place
once. My people have long been carving into the living
mountain, but we are having not a tenth of the skill the
Sithi had."

The reference to Jiriki's people as though they were a
vanished race bothered Simon, but he was not yet ready
to give up the subject of Leieth's well-being. "Are you
sure we shouldn't get something for her? Perhaps a
cloak? It's so cold."

"Leieth will be well," said Geloe from the doorway. Si-
mon jumped guiltily, as if he had been plotting treason.
"She is only traveling a little way on the Dream Road
without us. She is happiest there, I think."

She strode forward into the room. Father Strangyeard
appeared behind her. "Hello, Simon, Binabik," the priest
said. His face was as happy and excited as a child's at
Aedontide. "I'm going to go with you. Dreaming, I mean.
On the Dream Road. I have read of it, of course—it has
long fascinated me—but I never imagined ..." He wag-
gled his fingers as if to demonstrate the delightful unlike-
liness of it all.

"It is not a day of berry-picking, Strangyeard," Geloe
said crossly. "But since you are a Scrollbearer now, it is
good that you learn some of the few Arts left to us."

"Of course it is not—I mean, of course it is good to
leam. But berry-picking, no—I mean ... oh." Defeated,
Strangyeard fell silent.

"Now I am knowing why Strangyeard joins us,"

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER l6l

Binabik said. "And I may be good for helping, too. But
why Simon, Valada Geloe? And why here?"

The witch woman passed her hand briefly through
Leieth's hair, eliciting no response from the child, then
sat down on the pillar beside her. "As to the first, it is be-
cause I have a special need, and Simon perhaps can help.
But let me explain all, so no mistakes will be made." She
waited until the others had seated themselves around her.
"I told you that another great storm is coming. The Road
of Dreams will be difficult to walk, if not impossible.
There are other things coming, too." She held up her hand
to forestall Simon's question. "I cannot say more. Not un-
til I speak to Josua. My birds have brought news to me—
but even they will go to their hiding places when the
storm comes. Then we atop this rock will be blind."

As she spoke, she deftly built a small pile of sticks on
the stone floor, then lit it with a twig she had set aflame
from one of the lamps. She reached into her cloak pocket
and produced a small sack. "So," she continued, "while
we can, we will make a last try to gather those who may
be useful to us, or who need the shelter we can give. I
have brought you here because it is the best spot. The
Sithi themselves chose it when they spoke with each
other over great distance, using, as the old lore says,
'Stones and Scales, Pools and Pryes'—what they called
their Witnesses." She poured a handful of herbs from the
sack, weighing them on her palm. "That is why I named
this place the 'Observatory.' As clerics in the observato-
ries of the old Imperium once watched the stars from
theirs, so the Sithi once came to this place to look over
their empire of Osten Ard. This is a powerful spot for
seeing."

Simon knew more than a little about the Witnesses—he
had summoned Aditu with Jiriki's mirror, and had seen
Amerasu's disastrous use of the Mist Lamp. He suddenly
remembered his dream from the night of his vigil—the
torchlit procession, the Sithi and their strange ceremony.
Could the nature of this place have something to do with
his clear, strong vision of the past?

"Binabik," Geloe said, "you may have heard of

162 Tad Williams

Tiamak, a Wrannaman befriended by Morgenes. He sent
messages sometimes to your master Ookekuq, I think."
The troll nodded. "Dinivan of Nabban also knew Tiamak.
He told me that he had instigated some well-meaning
plan, and had drawn the Wrannaman into it." Geloe
frowned. "I never found out what it was- Now that
Dinivan is dead, I fear the marsh man is lost and without
friends- Leieth and I have tried to reach him, but have not
quite managed. The Dream Road is very treacherous
these days."

She reached across the pillar and lifted a small jar of
water from the rubble-strewn floor. "So I hope your
added strength will help us find Tiamak. We will tell him
to come to us if he needs protection. Also, I have prom-
ised Josua that I will try to reach Miriamele once more.
That has been even stranger—there is some veil over her,
some shadow that prevents me from finding her. You
were close to her, Simon. Perhaps that bond will help us
finally to break through."

Miriamele. Her name sent a rush of powerful feelings
through Simon—hope, affection, bitterness. He had been
angry and disappointed to discover that she was not at
Sesuad'ra. In the back of his mind he had been somehow
certain that if he won through to the Stone of Farewell
she would be there to welcome him; her absence seemed
like desertion. He had been frightened, too, when he dis-
covered that she had vanished with only the thief Cadrach
for company.

"I will help any way I can," he said.

"Good." Geloe stood, rubbing her hands on her
breeches. "Here, Strangyeard, I will show you how to
mix the mockfoil and nightshade. Does your religion for-
bid this?"

The priest shrugged helplessly. "I don't know. It might
.,. that is, these are strange days."

"Indeed." The witch woman grinned. "Come, then, I
will show you. Consider it a history lesson, if you wish."

Simon and Binabik sat quietly while Geloe demon-
strated the proportions for the fascinated archivist.

"This is the last of these plants until we leave this

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

163

rock," she said when they had finished. "Another encour-
agement to succeed this time. Here." She dabbed a little
on Simon's palms, forehead, and lips, then did the same
for Strangyeard and Binabik before setting down the pot.
Simon felt the paste grow chill against his skin.

"But what about you and Leieth?" Simon asked.

"I can get by without it. Leieth has never needed it.
Now, sit and clasp hands. Remember, the Road of Dreams
is strange these days. Do not be frightened, but keep your
wits about you."

They put one of the lamps on the.floor and sat in a cir-
cle beside the crumbling pillar, Simon clutched Binabik's
small hand on one side and Leieth's equally small hand
on the other. A smile spread slowly across the little girl's
face, the blind smile of someone who dreams of happy
surprises-

The icy sensation spread up Simon's arms and all
through him, filling his head with a kind of fog. Although
twilight should still have been clinging overhead, the
room swiftly grew dark. Soon Simon could see nothing
but the wavering orange tongues of the fire, then even
that light passed into blackness . . . and Simon fell
through.

Beyond the black all was a universal, misty gray—a
sea of nothingness with no top or bottom. Out of that
formless void a shape slowly began to coalesce, a small,
swift-moving figure that darted like a sparrow. It took
only a moment before he recognized Leieth—but this was
a dream-Leleth, a Leieth who whirled and spun, her dark
hair flying in an unfelt wind. Although he could hear
nothing, he saw her mouth curl in delighted laughter as
she beckoned him forward; even her eyes seemed alive in
a way he had never seen. This was the little girl he had
never met—the child who, in some inexplicable way, had
not survived the mauling jaws of the Stonnspike Pack.
Here she was alive again, freed from the terrors of the
waking world and from her own scarred body. His heart
soared to watch her unfettered dance.

Leieth swept along before him, beckoning, silently
pleading with him to hurry, to follow her, to follow' Si-

164

Tad Williams

mon tried, but in this gray dream place it was he who was
lamed and lagging. Leieth's small form quickly quickly
became indistinct, then vanished into the undending gray-
ness. His dream-self felt a kind of warmth disappear with
her. Suddenly, he was alone again and drifting.

What might have been a long time passed. Simon
floated without purchase until something tugged at him
with gentle, invisible fingers. He felt himself pulled for-
ward, gradually at first, then with growing speed; he was
still unbodied, but nevertheless caught up by some incom-
prehensible current. A new shape began to form out of
the emptiness before him—a dark tower of unstable
shadow, a black vortex shot through with red sparks, like
a whirlpool of smoke and fire. Simon felt himself drawn
toward it even more swiftly and was suddenly fearful.
Death lay in that whirling dark—death or something
worse. Panic welled up in him, stronger than he had
imagined it could be. He forced himself to remember that
this was a dream, not a place. He did not have to dream
this dream if he did not want it. A part of him remem-
bered that at this very moment, in some other place, he
was holding the hands of friends....

As he thought of them, they were there with him, invis-
ible but present- He gained a little strength and was able
to halt his slide inward toward the boiling, sparking
blackness. Then, bit by bit, he pulled himself away, his
dream-self somehow swimming against the current. As he
put distance between himself and the black roil, the whirl-
pool abruptly fell in upon itself and he was free and sail-
ing into some new place. The grayness was placid here,
and there was a different quality to the light, as though
the sun burned behind thick clouds.

Leieth was there before him. She smiled at his arrival,
at the pleasure of having him with her in this place—
although Simon knew now beyond a doubt that he could
never share all she experienced.

The formlessness of the dream began to change; Simon
felt as though he hovered above something much like the
waking world. A shadowed city lay below him, a vast
tract of structures formed from a haphazard collection of

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER                           165

unlikely things—wagon wheels, children's toys, statues of
unfamiliar animals, even toppled siege-towers from some
long-ago war. The haphazard streets between the madly
unlikely buildings were full of scurrying lights. As he
stared down, Simon felt himself drawn toward one partic-
ular building, a towering structure made entirely of books
and yellowing scrolls, which seemed ready at any mo-
ment to collapse into a rubbish heap of old parchment.
Leieth, who had been moving around him in circles, swift
as a bumblebee, now whirled down toward a gleaming
window in the book-tower.

Upon a bed lay a figure. Its shape was unclear, as
something seen through deep water. Leieth spread her
thin arms above the bed and the dark shape tossed in un-
easy sleep.

"Tiamak." said Leieth—but it was Geloe's voice, and it
contained traces of his other companions' voices as well.
"Tiamak! Wake to us!"

The shape on the bed moved more fitfully, then slowly
sat up. The figure seemed to ripple, and the sense of be-
ing underwater was strengthened. Simon thought he heard
it speak, but the voice at first was wordless.

"..... ??"

"It is Geloe, Tiamak—Geloe of the Aldeheorte Forest.
1 want you to come and join me and others at Sesuad'ra.
You will be safe there."

The figure rippled again. "... .dreaming? ..."

"Yes—but it is a true dream. Come to the Stone of
Farewell. It is hard to speak to you. Here is how you can
find it." Leieth stretched her arms over the shadowy fig-
ure once more, and this time a blurry image of the Stone
began to form.

"... Dinivan ... wanted ..."

"/ know. All is changed now. If you need refuge, come
to Sesuad'ra." Leieth lowered her hands and the waver-
ing picture was gone. The form on the bed also began to
fade.

".../..." It was trying to tell some urgent thing, but
it was rapidly vanishing into mist, even as the tower in
which it lay and the surrounding city were vanishing, too.

i66 Tad Williams

"... from the North ... grim ... found the old night..."
There was a lag, then a last heroic effort. ".. - Misses'
book ..."

The dream-shadow vanished and all was murky gray
once more.

As the intangible mist surrounded him once more, Si-
mon's thoughts turned to Miriamele. Surely, since they
had somehow reached Tiamak, Gelog would now turn her
attention to the missing princess. And indeed, even as
Miriamele's image came to his mind—he saw her as she
had been in Geloe's house, dressed in boy's clothing, hair
blackened and close-shorn—that very picture began to
form in the nothingness before him. Miriamele shim-
mered for a moment—he thought her hair might have
turned gold, its natural hue—then it dissolved into some-
thing else. A tree? A tower? Simon felt a sense of cold
foreboding. He had seen a tower in many dreams, and it
never seemed to signify anything good. But no, this was
more than one tall shape. Trees? A forest?

Even as he strained to make the image clearer, the
shadowy vision began to coalesce, until he at last could
see that it was a ship, as blurry and imprecise as had been
the dream-Tiamak in his parchment tower. The tall masts
were hung with lank sails and fluttering ropes, all made
from cobwebs, gray and dusty and tattered. The ship
rocked as though in a great wind. The black waters be-
neath were studded with glowing whitecaps, and the sky
overhead was just as black. Some force pushed at Simon,
holding him away from the vessel despite his desperation
to approach. He fought hard against it. Miriamele might
be there!

Exerting his will to the utmost, Simon tried to force
himself nearer to the ghostly ship, but a great dark curtain
swept before him, a storm of rain and mist so thick as to
be almost solid. He stopped, lost and helpless. Leieth was
suddenly beside him, her smile gone, her small face set in
a grimace of effort.

Miriamele! Simon cried. His voice pealed out—not
from his own, but from Leieth's mouth. Miriamele! he
shouted again. Leieth forced herself a little nearer to the

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER                           167

phantom, as though carrying his words as close as she
could before they spilled from her mouth. Miriamele,
come to the Stone of Farewell!

The boat had now vanished entirely and the storm was
spreading to cover all the black sea. At its heart, Simon
thought he saw jumping arcs of red light like those that
had pierced the great whirlpool. What did this mean? Was
Miriamele somehow endangered? Were her dreams in-
vaded? He forced himself to a final effort, pushing hard
against the swirling dream-storm, but to no avail. The
ship was gone- The storm itself had completely sur-
rounded him. It growled and hummed through his very
being like the tolling of huge brazen bells, shaking him so
powerfully that he thought he could feel himself breaking
apart. Now Leieth was gone, too. The spark-shot black-
ness held him like an inky fist, and he suddenly thought
that he would die here, in this place that was no place-

A patch of light appeared in the distance, small and
gray as a tarnished silver coin. He moved toward it as the
blackness battered him and the red sparks sizzled through
him like tiny lances of fire. He tried to feel his friends'
hands but could not. The gray seemed to be no closer. He
was tiring, as would a swimmer far out at sea.

Binabik, help me! he thought, but his friends were lost
beyond the unending blackness. Help me! Even the tiny
spot of gray was fading. Miriamele, he thought, / wanted
to see you again....

He reached for the spot of light one last time and felt
a touch, as of a fingertip pressing his, although he had no
hands to touch or be touched. A little strength came, and
he slipped closer to the gray ... closer, with black all
around ... closer....

A

Deomoth thought that in different circumstances, he
would have laughed. To see Josua sitting, listening with
such rapt and respectful attention to this unusual pair of
counselors—a hawk-faced woman with mannish hair and

168 Tad Williams

man's clothing, and a waist-high troll—was to see the
upside-down world personified.

"So what do you hope that this Tiamak will bring,
Valada Geloe?" the prince asked. He moved the lamp
closer. "If he is another wise one like Morgenes and your-
self, I am sure we will welcome him."

The witch woman shook her head. "He is not a wielder
of the An, Josua, and he is certainly not a planner of
wars. In truth, he is a shy little man from the swamp who
knows much about herbs that grow in the Wran. No, I
have tried to call him here only because he was close to
the League, and because I fear for him. Dinivan had some
plan to use him, but Dinivan is dead. Tiamak should not
be abandoned. Before the storm arrives, we must save all
we can."

Josua nodded his head, but without much enthusiasm.      ^
Beside him, Vorzheva looked no happier. Deornoth
thought that the prince's wife might resent any more re-
sponsibilities being piled on her husband's shoulders,
even one very small responsibility from the marsh coun-
try.

"Thank you for that, Geloe," he said. "And thank you
for trying again to reach my niece Miriamele. I grow in-
creasingly worried for her."

"It is strange," the witch woman replied. 'There is
something odd there, something I cannot make sense of.
It is almost as though Miriamele has erected some barrier
to us, but she has no such talents, I am puzzled." She
straightened, as if dismissing a useless thought. "But
there is more to tell you."

Binabik had been shifting from foot to foot. Before
Geloe could continue, he touched her arm. "Forgive me,
but I should be looking to Simon, to make sure the un-
pleasantness of the Dream Road has left him and that he
is resting well."

Geloe almost smiled, "You and I can speak later."

"Go, Binabik," urged Josua. "I will go to him later my-
self. He is a brave boy, although perhaps a bit over-
eager."

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER            169

The troll bowed low and trotted out through the tent's
door flap-

"I wish my other news was good. Prince Josua," Geloe
said, "but the birds have brought me worrisome tidings.
There is a large force of armored men coming toward us
from the west."

"What?" Josua sat up, startled. Beside him, Vorzheva
draped her hands protectively across her belly. "I don't
understand. Who has sent you this message?"

The witch woman shook her head. "I do not mean birds
like Jamauga's, who carry little scraps of parchment. I
mean the birds of the sky. I can speak with them ... some-
what. Enough to understand the sense of things. There is a
small army on the march from the Hayholt. They have rid-
den through the valley towns of Hasu Vale and are now fol-
lowing the southern border of the great forest toward the
grasslands."

Deornoth stared at her. When he spoke, his voice
sounded weak and querulous, even to his own ears. "You
talk with birds?"

Geloe turned a sharp glance on him. "Your life may
have been saved by it. How do you think I knew to come
to you on the banks of the Stefflod, when you would have
fought Hotvig's men in the dark? And how do you think
I found you in the first place in all the vastness of
Aldheorte?"

Josua had laid his hand on Vorzheva's shoulder as if to
soothe her, although she looked quite calm. When he
spoke, his voice was unusually harsh. "Why have you not
told us of this before, Geloe? What other information
could we have had?"

The forest woman seemed to suppress a sharp reply. "I
have shared everything vital. There has been precious lit-
tle to share during this yearlong winter. Most of the birds
are dead, or hiding from the cold—certainly not flying.
Also, do not misunderstand: I cannot talk to them as you
and I are speaking now. Their thoughts are not people's
thoughts, and words do not always fit them, nor can I al-
ways understand. Weather they understand, and fear, but
those signs have been clear enough for us to read our-

170 Tad Williams

selves. Beyond that, it is only something as plain as a
large body of men on foot and horseback that can even
catch their attention. Unless some man is hunting them,
they think very little about us."

Deomoth realized he was staring and looked away. He
thought she did more than just talk with birds—he re-
membered the winged thing that had struck at him in the
copse above the Stefflod—but he knew it was foolish to
bring it up. It was more than foolish, he decided suddenly,
it was rude. Geloe had been a loyal ally and helpful
friend. Why did he begrudge her the secrets on which her
life was plainly founded?

"I think Valada Geloe is correct, sire," he said quietly.
"She has proven time and again that she is a valuable
ally. What is important now is the news she brings."

Josua stared at him for a moment, then nodded once in
assent. "Very well, Geloe, have your winged friends any
idea how many men are coming, and how fast?"

She thought for a moment. "I would say the number is
somewhere in the hundreds, Josua, although that is a
guess. Birds do not count as we do, either. As for when
they will be here, they seem to be traveling without hurry,
but still, I should not be surprised to see them inside a
month."

"Aedon's Blood," Josua swore. "It is Guthwulf and the
Erkynguard, that would be my wager. So little time. I had
hoped we might have until the coming spring to prepare."
He looked up. "Are you sure they come here?"

"No," said Geloe simply. "But where else?"

For Deomoth, the fear this announcement brought was
almost overwhelmed by a surprising sense of relief. It
was not what they had wanted, not so soon, but the situ-
ation was by no means hopeless. Despite their own scant
numbers, as long as they held this eminently defensible
rock entirely surrounded by water, there was at least a
small chance they could fight off a besieging force. And
it would be the first chance to strike back at Elias since
the destruction of Naglimund. Deornoth felt the knife-
edge of violence pressing against him. It would not be en-
tirely bad to simplify the world, since there seemed to be

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER                           171

no other choice. What was it that Einskaldir used to say?
"Fight and live, fight and die. God waits for all." Yes,
that was it. Simple.

"So," Josua said finally- "Caught between a bitter new
storm and my brother's army." He shook his head. "We
must defend ourselves, that is all. So soon after we have
found this place of refuge, we must fight and die again."
He stood up, then turned and bent to kiss his wife.

"Where are you going?" Vorzheva raised a hand to
touch his cheek, but did not meet his eyes. "Why do you
leave?"

Josua sighed. "I should go and speak to the lad Simon.
Then I will walk for a while and think."

He strode out into the night and the swift wind.

«

In the dream, Simon was seated upon a massive throne
made of smooth white stone. His throne room was not a
room at all, but a great sward of stiff green grass. The sky
overhead was as unnaturally blue and depthless as a
painted bowl. A vast circle of courtiers stood before him;

like the sky, their smiles seemed fixed and false.

"The king brings rebirth!" someone cried. The nearest
of the courtiers stepped up to the throne. It was a dark-
eyed woman dressed in gray with long straight hair; there
was something terribly familiar about her face. She set
before him a doll woven of leaves and reeds, then stepped
away again and, despite the absence of hiding places on
all sides, disappeared. The next person moved into place.
"Rebirth!" someone shouted; "Save us!" cried another.
Simon tried to tell them that he had no such power, but
the desperate faces continued to circle past, continuous
and indistinguishable as the spokes of a turning wheel.
The pile of offerings grew larger. There were other dolls,
and sheaves of summer-yellow wheat, as well as bunches
of flowers whose brightly colored petals seemed as artifi-
cial as the paint-blue sky. Baskets of fruit and cheeses
were placed before him, even farm animals, goats and
calves whose bleating rose above the importuning voices.

172 Tad Williams

"I can't help you!" Simon cried. "There's nothing to be
done!"

The endless parade of faces continued. The cries and
moans began to swell, an ocean of pleading that made his
ears ache. At last he looked back down and saw that a
child had been placed on the spreading mass of offerings,
as though atop a funeral bier. The infant's face was som-
ber, the eyes wide.

Even as Simon reached out to the child, his eye was
caught by the doll that had been the first gift. It was rot-
ting before his eyes, blackening and sagging until it be-
came little more than a smear upon the obscenely bright
grass. The other offerings were changing, too, decaying at
a horrible rate—the fruits first bruising and dimpling,
then seeming almost to froth as a blanket of mold swept
over them. The flowers dried to ashy flakes, the wheat di-
minished to gray dust. As Simon watched in horror, even
the tethered animals sagged, bloated, then were skeleton-
ized in heartbeats by a pulsing mass of squirming white
grubs.

Simon tried to clamber down off his throne, but the un-
likely seat had begun buckling and sliding beneath him,
pitching as though in an earth tremor. He tumbled to his
knees in the muck. Where was the baby? Where? It would
be consumed like the rest, crumbled into putrefaction un-
less he rescued it! He dove forward, shoveling through
the rotting, stinking humus that had been the pile of offer-
ings, but there was no sign of the child—unless that was
a wink of gold, down there in the heap.... Simon scraped
down into the dark mass until it was all around him, clog-
ging his nose and filling his eyes like graveyard earth.
Was that gold, there, beaming through the shadows? He
must go deeper. Hadn't the child worn a golden bracelet?
Or had it been a ring, a golden band... ? Deeper. It was
so hard to breathe. -..

He awoke in the dark. After a moment of panic, he
fought free of his cloak and rolled toward the doorway,
then fumbled open the flap so he could see the few stars
not smothered by clouds. His heart slowed its pounding.

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER                           173

He was in the tent he and Binabik shared. Geloe and
Strangyeard and the troll had helped him stumble here
from the Observatory. Once they had laid him down on
his pallet, he had fallen into sleep and dreamed a strange
dream. But there had been another dream as well, hadn't
there—the journey on the Dream Road, a shadow house
and then a haunted ship? It was hard now to remember
which had been which, and where the separation was. His
head felt heavy and cobwebbed.

Simon pushed his head out and breathed the cold air,
drinking it in as though it were wine. Gradually his
thoughts became clearer. They had all gone to the Ob-
servatory to walk the Dream Road, but they had not found
Miriamele. That was the important thing, far more impor-
tant than some nightmare about dolls and babies and
golden rings. They had tried to reach Miriamele, but
something had prevented it, as Geloe had warned might
happen. Simon had refused to give up. Pushing on when
the others did not, he had almost lost himself in some-
thing bad—something very bad indeed.

/ almost reached her! Almost! I know I could do it if I
tried again!

But they had used the last ofGeloe's herbs, and in any
case, the time when the Dream Road could be walked had
almost ended. He would never have another chance ...
unless . . .

The idea—a frightening, clever idea—had just begun to
make its presence felt when he was startled from his
thoughts.

"I am surprised to find you awake." The lamp Josua
held limned his thin face in yellow light. "Binabik said he
had left you sleeping."

"I just woke up, your Highness." Simon tried to stand,
but tangled himself in the tent flap and nearly fell down
again.

"You should not be up. The troll said you had a diffi-
cult time. I do not quite understand all that you four were
doing, but I know enough to think you should be abed."

"I'm well." If the prince thought him sickly, he would
never let him go anywhere. Simon did not want to be left

174

Tad Williams

out of any further expeditions. "Truly. It was only a sort
of bad dream. I'm well."

"Hmm." Josua stared at him skeptically. "If you say it
is so. Come, then—walk with me for a little while. Per-
haps afterward you will be able to go back to sleep."

"Walk... ?" Inwardly, Simon cursed himself. Just at a
time when he truly wanted to be alone, his stupid pride
had tricked him again. Still, it was a chance to talk to
Josua.

"Yes, just a short way across the hilltop. Get something
to wrap yourself in. Binabik will never forgive me if you
catch some ague under my care."

Simon ducked back into the tent and found his cloak.

They walked for a while in silence. The light of Josua's
lamp reflected eerily from the broken stones of Sesuad'ra.

"I want to be a help to you. Prince Josua," he said at
last. "I want to get your father's sword back."

Josua did not reply,

"If you let Binabik go with me, we will never be no-
ticed. We are too small to attract the king's attention. We
brought you Thorn, we can bring you Bright-Nail as
well."

"There is an army coming," said the prince. "It seems
my brother has learned of our escape and seeks to remedy
his earlier laxness."

As Josua related Geloe's news, Simon felt a surprising
sense of satisfaction growing within him- So he would not
be denied his chance to do something after all! A moment
later he remembered the women and children and old folk
who now made New Gadrinsett their home and was
ashamed at his pleasure. "What can we do?" he asked.

"We wait." Josua stopped before the shadowy bulk of
the House of Waters. A dark rivulet ran down the crum-
bling stone sluice at their feet- "All other roads are closed
to us, now. We wait, and we prepare. When Guthwulf or
whoever leads this troop arrives—it could even be my
brother himself—we will fight to defend our new home.
If we lose ... well, then all is finished." The hilltop wind
lifted their cloaks and tugged at their clothing. "If some-

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

175

how God grants that we win, we will try to move forward
and make some use of our victory."

The prince sat down on a fallen block of masonry, then
gestured for Simon to sit beside him. He set the lamp
down; their shadows were cast giant-sized on the walls of
the House of Waters. "We must live our lives day to day,
now. We must not think too far ahead or we will lose
what little we have."

Simon stared at the dancing flame. "What about the
Storm King?"

Josua drew his cloak tighter. "I do not know—it is too
vast a matter. We must stick to the things we can under-
stand." He lifted his hand toward the slumbering tent city.
"There are innocents to be protected. You are a knight
now, Simon. That is your sworn task."

"I know. Prince Josua."

The older man was silent for a while. "And I have my
own child to think of, as well." His grim smile was a
small movement in the lampglow. "I hope it is a girl."

"You do?"

"Once, when I was a younger man, I hoped my first-
born would be a son." Josua lifted his face to the stars. "I
dreamed of a son who would tove learning and justice,
but have none of my failings." He shook his head. "But
now, I hope our child is a girl. If we lost and he survived,
a son of mine would be hunted forever. Elias could not let
him live. And if we were to win somehow ..." He trailed
off.

"Yes?"

"If we were to win, and I took my father's throne, one
day I would have to send my son off to do something I
could not do—something dangerous and glorious. That is
the way of kings and their sons. And I would never sleep
again, waiting to hear that he had been killed." He sighed.
"That is what I hate about ruling and royalty, Simon. It is
living, breathing people with whom a prince plays the
games of statecraft. I sent you and Binabik and the others
into danger—you, who were little more than a child. No,
I know you are now a young man—who knighted you, af-
ter all?—but that does not ease my remorse. With

176 Tad Williams

Aedon's mercy, you survived my attention—but other
companions of yours did not."

Simon hesitated a moment before speaking. "But being
a woman does not save anyone from being caught by war,
Prince Josua. Think of Miriamele. Think of your wife,
Lady Vorzheva."

Josua nodded slowly. "I fear you are right. And now
there will be more fighting, more war—and more helpless
ones will die." After a moment's thought he looked up,
startled. "Elysia, Mother of God, this is wonderful medi-
cine for someone suffering from nightmares!" He grinned
shamefacedly. "Binabik will kick me for this—taking his
ward out and talking to him of death and misery." He put
his arm around Simon's shoulder for a brief instant, then
rose to his feet. "I will take you back to your tent. The
wind is getting fierce."

As the prince bent to retrieve the lamp, Simon watched
his spare features and felt a painful kind of love for
Josua, a love mixed with pity, and wondered if all knights
felt this way about their lords. Would Simon's own father
Eahlferend have been stern but kind like Josua if he had
lived? Would he and Simon have talked together about
such things?

Most important of all, Simon thought as they pushed
through the waving grass, would Eahlferend have been
proud of his son?

They saw Qantaqa's gleaming eyes before they could
make out Binabik, a small dark figure standing beside the
tent door.

"Ah, good," the troll said- "1 was, I must confess, full
of worrying when I found you gone, Simon."

"It is my fault, Binabik. We were talking." Josua turned
to Simon. "I leave you in able hands. Sleep well, young
knight." He smiled and took his leave.

"Now." said Binabik sternly, "it is back to your bed
that you should go." He directed Simon through the door,
then followed him inside. Simon suppressed a groan as he
lay down. Was this to be a night when everyone in New
Gadrinsett would wish to talk with him?

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER                           177

His groan became actual as Qantaqa, following them
into the tent, stepped on his stomach.

"Qantaqa1 Hinik aia!" Binabik swatted at the wolf. She
growled and backed out of the door flap. "Now, time for
sleeping."

"You're not my mother," Simon muttered. How could
he ever do anything about his idea with Binabik hanging
about? "Are you going to sleep now, too?"

"I cannot." Binabik took an extra cloak and threw that
over Simon as well. "I am on watch with Sludig this
night. I will return to the tent with quietness when it is
finished." He crouched at Simon's side. "Are you wishing
to talk for a while? Was Josua telling you about the armed
men who are coming here?"

"He told me." Simon feigned a yawn. "I'll talk to you
about it tomorrow. I am sleepy, now that you mention it."

"You have had a day of great difficulty. The Dream
Road was treacherous, as Geloe was warning."

Simon's desire to get on with his plans was blunted for
a moment by curiosity- "What was that, Binabik—that
thing on the Dream Road. Like a storm, with sparks in it?
Did you see it, too?"

"Geloe is not knowing, and neither am I. Some distur-
bance, she called it. A storm is a good word, because I am
thinking it was something like bad weather on the Road
of Dreams. But what was causing it is something for
guessing about, only. And even the guessing is not good
for nighttime and the dark." He stood up. "Sleep well,
friend Simon."

"Good night, Binabik." He listened as the troll made
his way outside and whistled for Qantaqa, then he lay
quietly for a long time after, counting ten score heartbeats
before he slid out from beneath the sheltering cloaks and
went searching for Jiriki's mirror.

He found it in the saddlebags Binabik had saved from
Homefmder. The White Arrow was there, too, as was a
heavy drawstring sack that momentarily puzzled him. He
hefted it, then struggled with the knotted cord that held it
shut. Memory came back to him suddenly: Aditu had
given it to him at their parting, saying it was something

178

Tad Williams

sent from Amerasu to Josua. Curious, Simon wondered
for a moment if he should take it with him and open it in
a more private place, but he felt time pressing- Binabik
might come back sooner than expected; it would be better
to be berated for being absent than to be stopped before
he had a chance to try out his idea. He reluctantly pushed
the sack back into the saddlebag. Later, he promised him-
self. Then he would give it to the prince, as he had prom-
ised.

Stopping only to root out the small pouch containing
his flints, he slipped out of the tent and into the cold
night.

Scant moonlight leaked through the clouds, but it was
enough for him to find his way across the hilltop. A few
shadowy figures were moving through the tent city on
one sort of errand or another, but none challenged him,
and soon he had passed out of New Gadrinsett and into
the central ruins of Sesuad'ra.

The Observatory was deserted. Simon crept through the
deep-shadowed interior until he found the remains of
the fire Geloe had made. The ashes were still warm. He
added a few pieces of kindling that lay beside the embers,
then sprinkled it with a handful of sawdust from his
pouch. He struck at the blunt edge of his iron with his
flint until he finally managed to catch a spark. It died be-
fore he could breathe it into full life, so he laboriously re-
peated the procedure, cursing quietly. At last he managed
to start a small fire burning.

The carved rim of Jiriki's mirror seemed warm to his
touch, but the reflecting surface, when he held it near his
cheek, was as cold as a sheet of ice. He breathed on it as
he had breathed on the hard-won spark, then held it up
before his face.

His scar had lost some of its angry flame; it was now
a red and white line curving down his cheek from his eye
to his jaw. It gave him, he thought, a certain soldierly
look—the appearance of one who had fought for what
was right and honorable. The snow-white streak running
through his hair also seemed to add a touch of maturity.
His beard, which he could not resist fluffing with his fin-

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER                           179

gers while he stared, made him look, if not like a knight,
at least like a young man rather than a boy. He wondered
what Miriamele would think if she could see him now.

Maybe I'll find out soon.

He tilted the mirror a little, so that the firelight illu-
mined only half his face, leaving the remainder in red-
tinged shadow. He thought carefully about what Geloe
had said about the Observatory, how it had once been a
place where the Sithi saw and spoke to each other over
great distances. He tried to pull its antiquity and silence
|    around him like a cape. He had found Miriamele once be-
v    fore in the mirror, without trying: why not now, in this
potent place?

As he stared at his own halved reflection, the quality of
the firelight seemed to change. The flicker became a gen-
tle wavering, then slowed to a methodical pulse of scarlet
light. The face in the mirror dissolved into smoky gray,
and as he felt himself falling forward into it, he had time
for a brief, triumphant thought.

And nobody wanted to teach me magic!

The frame of the mirror had vanished and the grayness
was all around him. After his joumeyings earlier in the
day, he was undaunted: this was-old and familiar territory.
But even as he told himself this, another thought suddenly
came to him. He had always had a guide before, and other
travelers with him. This time there would be no Leieth to
share his troubles, and no Geloe or Binabik to help him if
he should go too far. A thin frost of fear descended, but
Simon fought it back. He had used the mirror to call Jiriki
once, had he not? There had been no one to help him
then. Still, a small pan of him guessed that calling for
help might be a little less difficult than exploring the
Road of Dreams by himself.

But Geloe had said that time was running short, that
soon the Dream Road would be impassable. This might
be his last chance to reach Miriamele, his last chance to
save her and guide her back. If Binabik and the others
found out, it would certainly be his last chance. He must
go forward. Besides, Miriamele would be so astonished,
so pleased and surprised....

i8o Tad Williams

The gray void seemed thicker this time. If he swam, it
was in gelid, muddy waters. How did one find his way
here, without landmarks or signs? Simon formed the im-
age of Miriamele in his mind, the same that he had held
at sunset, dream-traveling with the others. This time,
though, the picture would not hold together. Surely that
was not what Miriamele's eyes looked like? And her hair,
even when she had dyed it for disguise, was never that
shade of sorrel brown? He fought with the recalcitrant vi-
sion, but the features of the lost princess would not come
right. He was even having trouble remembering what they
should look like. Simon felt as though he tried to build a
stained glass window with colored water: the shapes ran
and merged together, heedless of his efforts.

Even as he struggled, the grayness around him began to
change. The difference was not immediately obvious, but
if Simon had been in his body—which he suddenly
wished he were—the hair on the back of his neck would
have risen and goosebumps would have carbuncled his
skin. Something shared the void with him, something
much vaster than he was. He felt the outward wash of its
power, but unlike the dream-storm that had caught at him
before, this thing was no mindless force: it exuded intel-
ligence and evil patience. He felt its remorseless scrutiny
as a swimmer in the open sea might sense a great-finned
thing pass beneath him in the black depths.

Simon's solitude suddenly seemed a kind of dreadful
nakedness. He struggled, desperate to make contact with
something that might pull him away from this shelterless
void. He felt himself dwindling with fear, guttering like a
candleflame—he did not know how to get away! How
could he leave this place? He tried to startle himself out
of the dream, to come awake, but as in childhood night-
mares, there was no breaking the spell. He had entered
this dream without sleeping, so how could he wake from
it?

The blurry image that was not Miriamele remained. He
tried to force himself toward it, to pull away from what-
ever great, slow thing was stalking him-

Help me.' he screamed silently, and felt a glimmer of

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

l8l

recognition somewhere on the horizon of his thoughts. He
reached for it, grasping at it like a castaway at a spar.
This new presence became a little stronger, but even as it
grew in strength, the thing that shared the void with him
extended a fraction more of its own power, just enough to
keep him from escaping. He sensed a malicious alien hu-
mor that delighted in his hopeless struggle, but he also
sensed that the thing was tiring of the diversion and
would soon end the game. A kind of deadening force
reached out and surrounded him, a coldness of the soul
that froze his efforts even as he reached out one more
time toward the faint presence. He touched her then,
across a dreadful span of dream, and clung.

Miriamele? he thought, praying that it was so, terrified
to let loose of the tenuous contact. Whoever she was, she
seemed finally to realize that he was there, but the thing
that had him did not falter now. A black shadow moved
over and through him, smothering light and thought....

Seoman!? Another presence was with him suddenly—
not the hesitant feminine one, not the dark, deadly other.
Come to me. Seoman! it called. Come!

A warmth touched him. The chill grasp of the other
squeezed more tightly for a Tnoment, then let go—not
overpowered, he sensed from its retreating thought, but
bored and unwilling to trouble with such small matters, as
a cat might lose interest in a mouse that had run under a
stone. The gray came back, still featureless and direction-
less, then began to swirl like breeze-twisted clouds. A
face formed before him—thin-boned, with eyes like liq-
uid gold.

"Jiriki!"

"Seoman," the other said. His face was worried. "Are
you in danger? Do you need help?"

"I am safe now, I think." Indeed, the lurking presence
seemed gone completely. "What was that horrible
thing?"

"I do not know for sure what had you, but if it was not
of Nakkiga, there is more evil in the world than even we
suspected." Despite the strange disconnectedness of
dream-vision, Simon could see the Sitha studying him

182 Tad Williams

carefully. "Do you mean to say you did not call me for a
reason?"

"/ didn't mean to call you at all." Simon replied, a lit-
tle shamed now that the worst was over. "I was trying to
find Miriamele—the king's daughter. I told you about
her."

"By yourself, on the Road of Dreams?" With the anger,
there was a kind of chilly amusement. "Idiot manchild! If
I had not been resting, and thus near to the place you
are—near in thought, I mean—then only the Grove knows
what would have become of you." After a moment, the
feeling of his presence warmed. "Still, I am glad you are
well."

"I'm happy to see you, too." And he was. Simon had
not realized how much he missed Jiriki's calm voice. "We
are at the Stone of Farewell—Sesuad'ra. Elias is sending
troops. Can you help us?"

The Sitha's angular face turned grim. "/ cannot come
to you any time soon, Seoman. You must keep yourself
safe. My father Shima 'onari is dying."

"I'm ... I'm sorry."

"He slew the hound Niku'a, greatest beast ever
whelped in the kennels ofNakkiga, but he took his death-
wound in the doing of it. It is another knot in the overlong
skein—another blood-debt to Utuk'ku and ..." he hesi-
tated, "the other. Still, the Houses are gathering. When
my father at last is taken to the Grove, the Zida'ya will
ride to war again." After his earlier flash of anger the
Sitha had returned to his customary implacability, but Si-
mon thought he could detect an underlying feeling of ten-
sion, of excitment.

Simon's hopes rose. "Will you join with Josua? Will
you fight with us?"

Jiriki frowned. "I cannot say, Seoman—and I would not
make false promises. If I have my way, we will, and one
last time the Zida'ya and Sudhoda'ya will fight together.
But there are many who will speak when I speak, and
many will have their own ideas. We have danced the
year's end many hundreds of times since all the Houses
were together for a war-council. Look!"

TO  GREEN   ANOEL  TOWER

183

Jiriki's face shimmered and faded, and for a moment
Simon could see a cloudy scene, a vast circle of silver-
leaved trees that stretched tall as towers. Gathered at their
feet was a great host of Sithi, hundreds of immortals clad
in armor of wildly different forms and colors, armor that
glinted and shimmered in the columns of sunlight that
spilled down through the treetops.

"Look. The members of all the Houses are joined at
Jao e-Tinukai'i. Cheka'iso Amber-Locks is here, as is
Zinjadu, Lore-Mistress of lost Kementari, and Yizashi
Grayspear. Even Kuroyi the tall horseman has come, who
has not joined with the House of Year-Dancing since
Shi'iki and Senditu's day. The exiles have returned, and
we will fight as one people, as we have not done since
Asu 'a fell. In this, anyway, Amerasu 's death and my fa-
ther 's sacrifice will not be in vain."

The vision of the armored host faded, then Jiriki faced
Simon once more. "But I have only a little power to guide
this gathering offerees," he said, "and we Zida'ya have
many obligations. I cannot promise we will come,
Seoman, but I will do my best to uphold my own duties to
you. If your need is great, call me. You know I will do
what I can."

"I know, Jiriki." There seemed many other things that
he should tell him, but Simon's mind was in a whirl. "/
hope we see each other soon."

At last, Jiriki smiled. "As I said once before, manchild,
a very unmagical wisdom tells me we shall meet again.
Be brave."

"I will."

The Sitha's face grew serious. "Now go, please. As you
have found, the Witnesses and the Dream Road are no
longer reliable—in fact, they are dangerous. I also doubt
that words spoken here are safe from listening ears. That
the Houses are gathering is no secret, but what the
Zida 'ya will do is. Avoid these realms. Seaman."

"But I need to find Miriamele," Simon said stubbornly.

"You will only find trouble, 1 fear. Leave it alone. Be-
sides. perhaps she is hiding from things that might not

184 Tad Williams

find her unless, without meaning to, you lead them to
her."

Simon thought guiltily of Amerasu, but realized Jiriki
had not intended to remind him of that, but only to cau-
tion him, "If you say so," he acceded. So it had all been
for nothing-

"Good." The Sitha narrowed his eyes, and Simon felt
his presence begin to fade. A sudden thought came.

"But I don't know how to get back!"

"I will help you. Farewell for now, my Hikka Staja."

Jiriki's features blurred and evaporated, leaving only
shimmering gray. As even that emptiness began to fade,
Simon felt again a faint touch, the feminine presence to
which he had reached out in his moment of fear. Had she
been with them all along? Was she a spy, as Jiriki had
warned about? Or was it indeed Miriamele, separated
from him somehow, but nonetheless feeling that he was
near? Who was it?

As he came back to himself, shivering in the cold be-
neath the Observatory's broken dome, he wondered if he
would ever know.

6

The Sea-Grave

Miriomefe had paced back and forth across the small
cabin so many times that she could almost feel the plank
flooring wearing away beneath her slippered feet.

She had nerved herself to an exquisite pitch, ready to
slit the earl's throat as he lay sleeping. But now, at Gan
Itai's direction, she had hidden the pilfered dagger and
was waiting—but she did not know for what. She was
trembling, and no longer just with anger and frustration:

the gnawing fear, which she had been able to suppress
with the thought that all would be over quickly, had re-
turned. How long could it be until Aspitis noticed the
theft of his knife? And would he have even a moment's
doubt before he fixed the blame in the obvious place?
This time, he would come to her wary and prepared; then,
instead of the bindings of shame and society, she would
go to her impending wedding in chains as real as
Cadrach's.

As she paced, she prayed to blessed Elysia and Usires
for help, but in the offhand way that one spoke to an
ancient relative who had long ago gone deaf and numb-
witted. She had little doubt that whatever happened to her
on this drifting ship was of scant interest to a God who
could allow her to reach this sorry state in the first place.

She had been proved wrong twice. After a childhood
surrounded by flatterers and lackeys, she had been certain
the only way to make a life worth living was to listen
only to her own counsel and then push forward against
any impediment, letting no one stay her from whatever

i86 Tcsd Williams

seemed important—but it was just that course which had
brought her to this horrible position. She had fled her un-
cle's castle, certain that she alone could help change the
course of events, but the faithless tides of time and his-
tory had not waited for her, and the very things she hoped
to prevent had occurred anyway—Naglimund fallen,
Josua defeated—leaving her without purpose. So it had
seemed wisest to cease fighting, to put an end to a life-
time's worth of stubborn resistance and simply let events
push her along. But that plan had proven as foolish as the
first, for her listlessness had brought her to Aspitis' bed,
and soon would make her his queen. For a while this re-
alization had toppled Miriamele back into heedlessness—
she would kill him, and then likely be killed by Aspitis'
men; there would be no mucking about in the middle
ground, no complicated responsibilities. But Gan Itai had
stopped her, and now she drifted and circled just as the
Eadne Cloud idled on the windless waters.

This was an hour of decision, the sort Miriamele had
learned about from her tutors—as when Pelippa, the pam-
pered wife of a nobleman, had to decide whether to de-
clare her belief in the condemned Usires. The pictures in
her childhood prayer book were still fresh in her memory.
As a young princess, she had been chiefly fascinated by
the silver paint on Pelippa's dress. Miriamele had given
little thought to Pelippa herself, to the actual people
caught up in the legends, written of in stories, painted on
walls. Only recently had it occurred to her to wonder how
it felt to be one of those folk. Had the warring kings im-
mortalized in the Sancellan's tapestries walked back and
forth in their ancient halls as they agonized over deci-
sions, thinking little of what people would say in centu-
ries unborn, but rather sorting the smalt facts of the
moment, trying to see a pattern that might guide them to
a wise choosing?

As the ship gently rocked and the sun rose into the sky,
Miriamele paced and thought- Surely there must be some
way to be bold without being stupid, to be resilient with-
out becoming malleable and yielding as candle wax.
Along some course midway between these two extremes,

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER

IS?

might there be a way she could survive? And if there was,
could she then fashion from it a life worth living?

In the lamplit cabin, hidden from the sun, Miriamele
pondered. She had not slept much the night before and
she doubted she would sleep in the night that was coming
... if she lived to see it.

When the knock came upon her door, it was a quiet
one. She thought herself ready to face even Aspitis, but
her fingers trembled as they reached for the door handle.

It was Gan Itai, but for a moment Miriamele thought
that some other Niskie had come aboard, so changed did
the sea-watcher look. Her golden-brown skin seemed
almost gray. Her face was loose and haggard and
her sunken, red-rimmed eyes seemed to gaze out at
Miriamele across a vast distance. The Niskie had wrapped
her cloak closely about her, as though even in the swol-
len, humid air that presaged a storm, she feared catching
a chill.

"Mercy of Aedon!" Miriamele hustled her inside and
pushed the door closed. "Are you ill, Gan Itai? What has
happened?" Aspitis had discovered the theft and was on
his way, of course—that could "be the only reason for the
Niskie to look so dreadful. Miriamele faced this resolu-
tion with a kind of cold relief. "Do you need something?
Water to drink?"

Gan Itai raised her weathered hand. "I need nothing. I
have been ... thinking."

"Thinking? What do you mean?"

The Niskie shook her head- "Do not interrupt, girl. I
have things to say to you. I made my own decision." She
sat down on Miriamele's bed, moving as though two
score years had been added to her age. "First, do you
know where the landing boat is?"

Miriamele nodded. "Near midship on the starboard
side, hanging from the windlass ropes." There was at
least some advantage to having lived among waterfaring
folk most of her young life-

"Good. Go to it this afternoon, when you are sure you
are unobserved. Hide these there." The Niskie lifted her

188 Tad Williams

cloak and dumped several bundles out onto the bed. Four
were water skins, tight-filled; two more were packages
wrapped in sacking. "Bread, cheese, and water," Gan Itai
explained. "And some bone fishhooks, so you may per-
haps have some flesh to eke out your provisions. There
are a few other small things that may also prove useful."

"What does this mean?" Miriamele stared at the old
woman. Gan Itai still looked as though she carried some
dreadful burden, but her eyes had lost some of the
clouded look. They glinted now.

"It means you are escaping. I cannot sit and watch such
wickedness forced on you. I would not be one of the Nav-
igator's true children if I did."

"But it cannot happen!" Miriamele fought against the
rush of witless hope. "Even if I could get off the ship,
Aspitis would hunt me down within a few hours. The
wind will come up long before I reach land. Do you think
I can vanish in a dozen leagues of empty sea, or outrow
the Eadne Cloudr

"Outrow her? No." There was a strange pride in Gan
Itai's expression. "Of course not- She is fleet as a dol-
phin. But as to how ... leave that to me, child. That is
the rest of mv duty. You, however, must do one other
thing."

Miriamele swallowed her arguments. Heedless, stub-
born pushing had done her little good in the past.
"What?"

"In the hold, in one of the barrels near the starboard
wall, tools and other metal goods are packed in oil. There
is writing on the cask, so do not fear you will not find it-
Go to the hold after sunset, take a chisel and a mallet
from the barrel, and strike off Cadrach's chains- Then he
must hide the fact that the chains are broken, in case
someone comes."

"Break his chains? But everyone on the ship will hear
me." Weariness descended on her. Already it seemed
clear that the Niskie's plan could never succeed.

"Unless my nose betrays me, the storm will be here
soon. A ship at sea in heavy wind makes many noises."

^
,}.,'.

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER                           189

Gan Itai lifted her hand to still further questions. "Just do
those tasks, then leave the hold and go to your cabin or
anywhere, but do not let anybody bolt you in." She wag-
gled her long fingers for emphasis. "Even if you must
feign sickness or madness, do not let anyone put a bolt
between you and freedom." The golden eyes stared into
her own until Miriamele felt her doubts wither away.

"Yes," she said. "I will."

"Then, at midnight, when the moon is just there" the
Niskie pointed at a spot on the ceiling, as if the sky were
spread directly over them, "get your learned friend and
help him to the landing boat. I will make sure you get a
chance to put it overboard." She looked up, caught by a
sudden thought. "By the Uncharted, girl, make sure that
the oars are in the boat! Look for them when you hide the
food and water."

Miriamele nodded- So the matter was resolved. She
would do her best to live, but if she failed, she would not
struggle against the inevitable. Even as her husband,
Aspitis Preves could not keep her alive against her will.
"And what will you do, Gan Itai?" she asked.

"What I have to."

*

"But it was not a dream!" Tiamak was growing angry,
What did it take to convince this great brute of a Rim-
mersman? "It was Geloe, the wise woman of Aldheorte
Forest. She talked to me through a child who has been in
all my dreams of late. I have read of this. It is a trick of
the Art, something adepts can do."

"Calm yourself, man. I didn't say you imagined it."
Isgrimnur turned from the old man, who was waiting pa-
tiently for the next question the duke might ask him. Al-
though unable to answer, he-who-had-been-Camaris
seemed to get a quiet, childlike satisfaction from the at-
tention, and would sit smiling back at Isgrimnur for
hours. "I have heard of this Geloe. I believe you, man.
And when we can leave, your Stone of Farewell is as
good a destination as any—I have heard that Josua's

190

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER

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191

camp is somewhere near where you say the place is. But
I cannot let a dream of any kind, no matter how urgent it
seems, take me away Just yet."

"But why?" Tiamak was not even sure himself why it
seemed so important that they leave. All he knew was
that he was tired of feeling worthless. "What can we do
here?"

"I am waiting for Miriamele, Prince Josua's niece,"
said the Rimmersman. "Dinivan sent me to this godfor-
saken inn. Perhaps he sent her as well. Since it is my
sworn duty to find her, and I have lost the trail, I must
stay for a time here where the track ends."

"If he sent her, then why is she not here now?" Tia-
mak knew he was making trouble, but could not help
himself.

"Perhaps she's been delayed. It is a long journey on
foot." Isgrimnur's mask of calm slipped a little. "Now be
quiet, damn you! I have told you all I can. If you wish to
go, then go! I won't stop you."

Tiamak closed his mouth with a snap, then turned and
limped unhappily to his bundle of belongings. He began
to sort through them in halfhearted preparation for depar-
ture.

Should he leave? It was a long journey, and would
certainly be better made with companions, however short-
sighted and uncaring of his feelings they might be. Or
maybe it would be better just to slink back to his house
in the banyan tree, deep in the marsh outside Village
Grove. But his people would demand to know what had
become of his forsaken errand to Nabban on their behalf,
and what would he tell them?

He Who Always Steps on Sand, Tiamak prayed, save
me from this terrible indecision!

His restless fingers touched heavy parchment. He drew
out the page of Nisses* lost book and cradled it briefly in
his hands. This small triumph, anyway, no one could take
from him. It was he and no one else who had found it.
But, sadness of sadnesses, Morgenes and Dinivan were no
longer alive to marvel at it!




". .. Bringe from Nuanni 's Rocke Garden,"
he read silently,

"... The Man who tho' Blinded canne See

Discover the Blayde that delivers The Rose

At the foote of the Rimmer 's greate Tree

Find the Call whose lowde Claime

Speakes the Call-bearer's name

In a Shippe on the Shallowest Sea—

—When Blayde, Call, and Man

Come to Prince's right Hande

Then the Prisoned shall once more go Free ..."

He remembered the dilapidated shrine to Nuanni he had
found in his wanderings a few days earlier. The wheezing,
half-blind old priest had been able to tell him little of im-
port, although he was quite happy to talk after Tiamak
dropped a pair of cintis-pieces into the offering bowl.
Nuanni was, apparently, a sea god of ancient Nabban whose
glory days had passed even before the upstart Usires ap-
peared. Old Nuanni's followers were few indeed these days,
the priest had assured him: were it not for the tiny pockets
of worship still clinging to life in the superstitious islands,
no one living would remember Nuanni's name, although the
god had once bestrode the Great Green, first in the hearts of
all seafarers. As it was, the old priest guessed that his was
the last shrine still on the mainland.

Tiamak had been pleased to hear the now-familiar
name from his parchment at last given substance, but had
thought little more of it than that. Now he let his mind
run on the first line of the puzzling rhyme and wondered
if "Nuanni's rock garden" might not refer to the scattered
islands of Firannos Bay themselves... ?

"What do you have there, little man? A map, hey?"
From the sound of his voice, Isgrimnur was trying to be
friendly, perhaps in an effort to offset his earlier
gruffness—but Tiamak was having none of it.

"Nothing. It is not your business." He quickly rolled

192 Tad Williams

the parchment and pushed it back into his clump of be-
longings.

"No need to bite my head off," the duke growled.
"Come, man, talk to me. Are you truly leaving?"

"I do not know." Tiamak did not want to turn and look
at him. The Rimmersman was so large and imposing that
he made the Wrannaman feel terribly small. "I might. But
it would be a long way for one to go alone."

"How would you go, anyway?" Isgrimnur's interest
sounded genuine.

Tiamak considered. "If I did not go with you two, there
would be no need to be inconspicuous. So I would go the
straightest way possible, overland across Nabban and the
Thrithings. It would be a long walk, but I am not afraid
of exertion." He frowned, thinking of his injured leg. It
might never heal, and certainly was not now capable of
carrying him a long distance. "Or perhaps I would buy a
donkey," he added.

"You certainly speak fine Westerling for a Wran-man,"
Isgrimnur smiled. "You use words I don't know myself."

"I told you," Tiamak replied stiffly. "I studied with the
Aedonite brothers in Perdruin. And Morgenes himself
taught me much."

"Of course." Isgrimnur nodded. "But, hmm, if you did
have to travel—inconspicuously, I think you said? If you
did have to travel without being noticed, what then?
Some secret marsh-man tunnels, or something like?"

Tiamak looked up. Isgrimnur was watching him care-
fully. Tiamak quickly lowered his gaze, trying to hide a
smile of his own. The Rimmersman was trying to trick
him, as though Tiamak were a child! It was funny, actu-
ally. "I imagine I would fly."

"Fly!?" Tiamak could almost hear the look of incredu-
lity twist the duke's features. "Are you mad?"

"Oh, no," said Tiamak earnestly, "it is a trick known to
all Wran-dwellers- Why do you think that we are only ob-
served in places like Kwanitupul, where we choose to be
seen? Surely you know that great blundering drylanders
come into the Wran and never see a living soul. It is be-
cause when we have to, we can fly. Just like birds." He

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

*93

darted a sideways glance. Isgrimnur's baffled face was
everything he could hope. "Besides, if we could not fly
... how would we reach the treetop nests where we lay
our eggs?"

"S'Red Blood! Aedon on the Tree!" Isgrimnur swore
explosively. "Damn you, marsh man! Mock me, will
you?!"

Tiamak cringed in expectation of having some heavy
object thrown at him, but a moment later looked up to see
the duke grinning and shaking his head. "I suppose I
asked for that. You Wrannamen have a sense of humor, it
seems."

"Perhaps some drylanders do also."

"Still, the problem remains." Isgrimnur glowered.
"Life seems nothing but difficult choices these days. By
the Ransomer's Name, I have made mine and must live
with it: if Miriamele does not appear by the twenty-first
day of Octander—Soul's Day, that is—then I, too, will
say 'enough' and head north. There is my choice. Now
you must make yours: stay or go." He turned back to the
old man, who had observed their entire conversation with
benign incomprehension. "I hope you stay, little man,"
the duke added quietly.

Tiamak stared for a moment, then stood and walked to
the window. Below, the murky canal gleamed like green
metal in the afternoon sun. He pulled himself up onto the
sill and dangled his wounded leg out the window.

"Inihe Red-Flower had dark hair, "
he crooned, watching a flatboat bob past,

"Dark hair, dark eyes. Slender as a vine she was,

And she sang to the gray doves.

Ah-ye, ah-ye, she sang to them all the night long.

"Shoaneg Swift-Rowing heard her,

Heard her, loved her. Strong as a banyan he was,

But he had no children.

Ah-ye, ah-ye, he had no one to carry his name.

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"Shoaneg called out to Red-Flower,
Wooed her, won her. Swift as dragon/lies their love

was,

And she came back to his home.
Ah-ye, ah-ye, her feather hung over his door.

"Inihe, she bore a boy-child,

Nursed him, loved him. Sweet as cool wind he was.

And he bore Swift-Rowing's name.

Ah-ye, ah-ye, water was safe to him as sand.

"The child grew up to wander,

Rowing, running. Footloose as a rabbit he was,

Traveled far from his home.

Ah-ye, ah-ye, he was stranger to the hearth.

"One day his boat came empty,

Spinning, drifting. Empty as a nutshell it was,

Red-Flower's child was gone.

Ah-ye, ah-ye, he had blown away like thistledown.

"Shoaneg said forget him,

Heartless, thoughtless. Like a foolish nestling he was,

Who flies from his home.

Ah-ye, ah-ye, his father cursed his name.

"Inihe could not believe it,
Missed him, mourned him. Sad as drifting leaves she

was,

Her tears soaked the floor-reeds.
Ah-ye, ah-ye, she cried for her missing son.

"Red-Flower burned to find him,

Hoping, praying. Like a hunting owl she was,

Who would search for her son.

Ah-ye, ah-ye, she would find her lost child.

"Shoaneg said he forbade her,
Shouted, ordered. Angry as a beehive he was,

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

195

If she went, he had no wife.

Ah~ye, ah-ye, he would blow her feather from his

door ..."

Tiamak broke off. A barge, crewed by shouting
Wrannaman, was being poled awkwardly into a narrow
side-canal. It scraped hard against the wharf pilings which
jutted at the front of the inn like rotten teeth. The surface
of the water boiled with waves. Tiamak turned to look at
Isgrimnur, but the duke had left the room. Only the old
man remained, his eyes fixed on nothing, his face vacant
but for a small, secretive smile.

It was long since Tiamak's mother had sung that song
to him. The tale of Inihe Red-Flower's terrible choice had
been her favorite. Thinking of her brought a tightness to
Tiamak's throat. He had betrayed the trust she would have
wanted him to keep—the debt he owed to his own people.
Now what should he do? Wait here with these drylanders?
Go to Geloe and the other Scrollbearers who had asked
him to come? Or return in shame to his own Village
Grove? Wherever he went, he knew that his mother's
spirit would watch him, mourning because her son had
turned his back on his people.

He frowned as if tasting something bitter. Isgrimnur
was right about one thing, anyway. These days, these
bleak days, life seemed nothing but difficult choices.

A

"Pull her back!" the voice said. "Quickly!"

Maegwin woke to find herself staring straight down
into white nothingness. The transition was so strange that
for a moment she thought she still dreamed. She leaned
forward, trying to move through this emptiness as she had
moved through the gray dream-void, but something re-
strained her. She gasped as she felt the fierce, biting cold.
She was leaning out over an abyss of swirling snow.
Rough hands were clutching at her shoulders.

"Hold her!"

She flung herself backward, scrabbling for safety,

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struggling against those who held her. When she could
feel stone solidly beneath her on all sides, she let out a
deep rush of close-held breath and went limp. The flurry-
ing snowflakes were quickly filling the indentations left
by her knees along the outer edge of the precipice.
Nearby, the ashes of her small campfire had all but disap-
peared under a mantle of white.

"Lady Maegwin—we are here to help you!"

She looked around, dazed. Two men still held her
tightly; a third stood a few paces behind her. All were
heavily cloaked, and wore scarves wrapped around their
faces. One wore the tattered crest of the Croich clan.

"Why have you brought me back?" Her voice seemed
slow and clumsy. "I was with the gods."

"You were about to fall. Lady," the man at her right
shoulder said. She could feel from the hand that gripped
her that he was shivering. "We have been searching for
you three days."

Three days! Maegwin shook her head and looked at the
sky. From the indistinct gleam of the sun, it was only a
little after dawn. Had she really been with the gods all
that time? It had seemed scarcely an instant. If only these
men had not come....

No, she told herself. That is selfish. I had to come
back—and I would have been of no use if I had tumbled
down the mountain and died.

After all, she now had a duty to survive. She had more
than duty.

Maegwin unwrapped her chilled fingers from the
dwarrow-stone, letting it tumble to the ground. She felt
her heart swell inside her. She had been right! She had
climbed Bradach Tor as the dream had bidden her. Now,
here in the high place she had dreamed again, dreams just
as compelling as the ones that had brought her here.

Maegwin had felt the messenger of the gods reaching
out for her, a messenger in the form of a tall, red-haired
youth. Although his features had been misted by the
dream, she guessed that he was very beautiful. Perhaps he
was a fallen hero of old Hernystir, Airgad Oakheart or

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWhR

197

Prince Sinnach, taken to live in the sky with Brynioch
and the rest'

During the first vision back in the cavern she had
merely sensed him looking for her, but when she tried to
reach out to him the dream had dissolved, leaving her
chill and lonely atop her rock. Then, when she had fallen
back into sleep, she had felt the messenger searching for
her once more. She had felt that his need was urgent, so
she had strained herself to the utmost, trying to bum as
bright as a lamp so that he could find her, stretching her-
self out through the substance of the dream so she could
reach him. Then, when she had touched him at last, he
had instantly carried her to the threshold of the land
where the gods lived.

And surely that had been one of the gods she had seen
there! Again, the dream-vision had been fogged—perhaps
living mortals could not witness the gods in their true
forms—but the face that had appeared before her was
nothing bom of man or woman. If nothing else, the burn-
ing, inhumanly golden eyes would have proved that. Per-
haps she had seen cloud-bearing Brynioch himself! The
messenger, whose spirit had remained with her, seemed to
tell the god something aboura high place—which could
only be the spot where Maegwin's sleeping body lay
while her soul flitted in dream—then the messenger and
the god spoke of a king's daughter and a dead father. It
had all been very confusing, the voices seeming to come
to her garbled and echoing, as if through a very long tun
net or across a mighty chasm—but who else could they
have been speaking of but Maegwin herself and her own
father Lluth, who had died protecting his people?

Not all the words spoken reached her, but the sense of
them was clear: the gods were readying themselves for
battle. Surely that could only mean they were going to in-
tervene at last. For a moment she had even been vouch-
safed a glimpse into the very halls of Heaven. A mighty
host of them had waited there, fiery-eyed and streaming-
haired, clad in armor as colorful as the wings of butter-
flies, their spears and swords shimmering like lightning in
a summer's sky. Maegwin had seen the gods themselves

198

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in their power and glory. It was true, it must be! How
could there be any doubt now? The gods meant to take
the field and to wreak revenge on Hemystir's enemies-
She swayed back and forth and the two men steadied
her- She felt that if she leaped from Bradach Tor at this
moment she would not fall, but would fly like a starling,
arrow-swift down the mountain to tell her people the
wonderful news. She laughed at herself and her foolish
ideas, then laughed again with joy that she should be cho-
sen by the gods of field, water, and sky to bear their mes-
sage of coming redemption.

"My lady?" The man's worry was clear in his tone.

"Are you ill?"

She ignored him, afire with ideas. Even if she could not
truly fly, she must hurry down the mountain to the cave
where the Hemystiri nation labored in its exile. It was

time to go!

"I have never been better," she said. "Lead me to my

people."

As her escorts helped her back along the tor,
Maegwin's stomach rumbled. Her hunger, she realized,
was returning swiftly. Three days she had slept and
dreamed and stared into the snowy distance from this
high place, and in that time she had eaten almost nothing.
Full of the words of heaven, she was now also hollow as
an empty barrel. How would she ever fill herself up? She
laughed uproariously and paused, smacking the snow
from her clothing in powdery bursts of white. It was bit-
terly cold, but she was warmed. She was far from her
home, but she had her leaping thoughts for company. She
wished she could share this sense of triumph with Eolair,
but even the thought of him did not sadden her, as it al-
ways had before. He was doing what he should do, and if
the gods had planted the seed of his going in her mind,
there must be some reason for it. How could she doubt,
when all else that had seemed promised had been given—
all but the last and greatest gift, which she knew was

coming soon?

"I have spoken with the gods," she told the three wor-

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER                           199

ried men. "They are with us at this terrible time—they
will come to us."

The man nearest her looked quickly at his companions,
then did his best to smile as he said: "Praise to all their
names."

Maegwin gathered her sparse possessions into her sack
so hastily that she chipped the wooden wing of Mircha's
bird. She sent one of the men back to get the dwarrow-
stone, which she had dropped in the snow at the cliff's
edge. Before the sun had moved a handsbreadth above the
horizon, she was making her way down the Grianspog's
snowy slope.

She was hungry and very tired, and she had also finally
begun to feel the cold. Even with the help of her rescuers,
the journey down was even more difficult than the climb
up. Still, Maegwin felt joy pulsing quietly within her like
a child waiting to be bom—a joy that, like a child, would
grow and become ever more splendid. Now she could tell
her people that help was coming! What could be more
welcome after this bleak twelvemonth?

But what else should be done, she suddenly wondered-
What should the Hernystiri people do to prepare for the
return of the gods?

Maegwin turned her thoughts to this as the party made
its careful way down and the morning slipped away
across the face of the Grianspog. She decided at last that
before anything else, she must speak to Diawen again.
The scryer had been right about Bradach Tor and had un-
derstood instantly the importance of the other dreams.
Diawen would help Maegwin decide what to do next.

Old Craobhan met the search party, full of angry words
and poorly-hidden worry, but his fury at her heedlessness
rolled off Maegwin like rain from oiled leather. She
smiled and thanked him for sending men to bring her
safely down, but would not be hindered; she ignored him
as he first demanded, then asked, then at last begged her
to rest and be tended. Finally, unable to convince her to

200                   Tad Williams

accompany them, unwilling to use force in a cavern full
of curious onlookers, Craobhan and his men gave up.

Diawen was standing before her cave as though she
had expected Maegwin to come at just that time. The
server took her arm and guided her into the smoky cham-
ber-

"I can see by your face." Diawen peered solemnly into
Maegwin's eyes. "Praise Mircha, you have had another
dream."

"I climbed up to Bradach Tor, just as you suggested."
She wanted to shout her excitment. "And the gods spoke
to me!"

She related all that she had experienced, trying not to
exaggerate or glorify—surely the bare reality was marvel-
ous enough! When she had finished, Diawen gazed back
at her in silence, eyes bright with what looked like tears.

"Ah, praise be," said the scryer. "You have been given
a Witnessing, as in the old tales."

Maegwin grinned happily. Diawen understood, just as
Maegwin had known she would. "It's wonderful," she
agreed. "We will be saved." She paused as the thought
she had been holding made itself felt. "But what should
we do?"

"The gods' will," Diawen replied without hesitation.

"But what is that?"

Diawen searched among her collection of mirrors, at
last selecting one made of polished bronze with a handle
in the shape of a coiling serpent. "Quiet now, I did not
walk in dreams with you, but I have my own ways." She
held the mirror above the smoldering fire, then blew away
the accumulated soot. For a long time she stared into it,
her dark brown eyes seemingly fixed on something be-
yond the mirror. Her lips moved soundlessly. At last, she
put the mirror down.

When Diawen spoke, her voice was remote. "The gods
help those who are bold. Bagba gave cattle to Hem's folk
because they had lost their horses fighting on behalf of
the gods. Mathan taught the art of weaving to the women
who hid her from her husband Murhagh's rage. The gods
help those who are bold." She blinked and pushed a lock

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER

201

of gray hair from her eyes. Her voice resumed its ordi-
nary tone. "We must go to meet the gods. We must show
them that Hem's children are worthy of their help."

"What does that mean?"

Diawen shook her head. "I am not sure."

"Should we take up arms ourselves? Go forth and chal-
lenge Skali?" Maegwin frowned. "How can I ask the peo-
ple to do that, few and weak as we are?"

"Doing the will of the gods is never easy," Diawen
sighed. "I know. When I was young, Mircha came to me
in a dream, but I could not do what she asked. I was
afraid." The scryer's face, lost in memory, was full of
fierce regret. "Thus I failed in my moment and left her
priesthood. I have never felt her touch since, not in all the
lonely years...." She broke off. When she turned her
gaze to Maegwin once more, she was brisk as a wool
merchant. "The will of the gods can be frightening, king's
daughter, but to refuse it is to refuse their help as well. I
can tell you no more."

"To take arms against Skali and his reavers . . ."
Maegwin let the thought flow through her like water.
There was a certain mad beauty in the idea, a beauty that
might indeed please the heavens. To lift the sword of
Hemystir once more against the invaders, even for one
brief moment. Surely the gods themselves would shout to
see such a proud hour! And surely at that moment the sky
could not help but open up, and all of Rhynn's lightnings
leap forth to bum Skali Sharp-nose and his army into
dust....

"I must think, Diawen. But when I speak to my father's
people, will you stand with me?"

The scryer nodded, smiling like a prideful parent. "I
will stand with you, king's daughter. We will tell the peo-
ple how the gods spoke."

A

A shower of warm rain was falling, the first outrider of
the approaching storm. The thick bank of clouds along
the horizon was mottled gray and black, touched at the

202                   Tad Williams

edges by the orange glare of the late afternoon sun it had
almost swallowed. Miriamele narrowed her eyes against
the spattering drops and looked carefully all around. Most
of the sailors were busy preparing for the storm, and none
seemed to be paying any attention to her at all. Aspitis
was in his cabin, where she prayed he would be too en-
grossed in his charts to notice the theft of his fanciest
dagger-
She slid the first of the water skins out from beneath
her belted cape, then loosened a knot that held the heavy
cloth cover in place over the open landing boat. After one
more quick survey of the surroundings, she let the water
skin slide down into the boat to nestle beside the oars,
then quickly sent down the other. As she stood on tiptoe
to push the parcels of bread and cheese in, somebody
shouted in Nabbanai.

"Hoy! Stop that!"

Miriamele froze like a cornered rabbit, heart pounding.
She let the food bundles slide out of her fingers and down
into the boat, then slowly turned-

"Fool! You've put it wrongside-round!" the sailor
screamed from his perch in the rigging. Twenty cubits up,
he was staring indignantly at another sailor working
above him on the mast. The object of his criticism gave
him the goat-sign and cheerfully continued doing what-
ever it was that had proved so offensive. The first sailor
shouted for a while longer, then laughed and spat through
the wind before resuming his own labors.

Miriamele closed her eyes as she waited for her knees
to stop shaking- She took a deep breath, filling her nose
with the scents of tar, wet planks, and the sodden wool of
her own cloak, as well as the bristly, secretive odor of the
approaching storm, then opened her eyes again. The rain
had grown stronger and was now running off her hood, a
tiny cascade falling just beyond the tip of her nose. Time
to get below-decks. It would be sunset soon and she did
not want to defeat Gan Itai's plan through simple care-
lessness, however faint the hope of success- Also, while it
was not inexplicable that Miriamele should be on deck in
this rapidly worsening rain, if she encountered Aspitis it

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

203

might stick in his mind as a curious thing. Miriamele did
not know exactly what the Niskie was arranging, but she
knew it would not be helped by putting the earl on guard.

She made her way down the hatchway stairs without
attracting attention, then padded silently along the corri-
dor until she reached the Niskie's sparsely furnished
room. The door had been left unbolted and Miriamele
quickly slipped inside. Gan Itai was gone—out preparing
the master-stroke of her plan, Miriamele felt sure, how-
ever hopeless even the Niskie thought it to be. Gan Itai
had certainly seemed weary and heartsick when she had
seen her this morning.

After Miriamele had tied up her skirt, she pulled free
the loose section of wall paneling, then agonized for a
long moment over whether to bolt the outer door of the
room. Unless she could replace the panel perfectly from
the inside of the hidden passageway, anyone entering the
room would instantly know someone had gone through,
and might be interested enough to investigate. But if she
threw the bolt, Gan Itai might return and be unable to get
in.

After a little consideration, she decided to leave the
door alone and take her chances with accidental discov-
ery. She took a stub of candle from her cloak and held it
to the flame of Gan Itai's lamp, then climbed through and
pulled the panel closed behind her. She held the candle-
end in her teeth as she climbed the ladder, saying a silent
prayer of thanks that her hair was wet and still cropped
short. She hastily dismissed an image of what might hap-
pen if someone's hair caught fire in a narrow place like
this.

When she reached the hatchway, she dripped some wax
on the passageway floor to hold the candle, then lifted the
trapdoor and peered through the crack. The hold was
dark—a good sign. She doubted that any of the sailors
would be walking around among the precariously stacked
barrels without light.

"Cadrach!" she called softly. "It's me! Miriamele!"

There was no reply, and for an instant she was sure that
she had come too late, that the monk had died here in the

204

Tad Williams

darkness. She swallowed down the clutch in her throat,
retrieved her candle, then climbed carefully down the lad-
der fixed to the sill of the hatchway. It ended short of the
ground, and when she dropped the remaining distance she
struck sooner than she expected to. The candle popped
from her hand and rolled across the wooden flooring. She
scrambled after it, burning herself with a panicky grab,
but it did not go out.

Miriamele took a deep breath. "Cadrach?"

Still unanswered, she snaked her way through the lean-
ing piles of ship's stores. The monk was slumped on the
floor beside the wall, head sunken on his breast. She
grabbed his shoulder and shook, making his head wobble.

"Wake up, Cadrach." He moaned but did not awaken.
She shook harder.

"Ah, gods," he slurred, "that smearech fleann ... that
cursed book ..." He flailed as if caught in a terrible
nightmare. "Close it! Close it! I wish I had never opened
it...." His words fell away into unintelligible mumbling.

"Curse you, wake up!" she hissed.

His eyes opened at last. "My ... my lady?" His confu-
sion was pitiable. Some of his substance had withered
away during his captivity: his skin hung loosely on the
bones of his face and his eyes peered blearily out of deep
sockets. He looked like an old man. Miriamele took his
hand, wondering a little that she should do so without
hesitation. Wasn't this the same tosspot traitor she had
pushed into the Bay of Emettin and hoped to watch
drown? But she knew he was not. The man before her
was a miserable creature who had been chained and
beaten—and not for any real crime, but only for running
away, for trying to save his own life. Now she wished she
had run with him. Miriamele pitied the monk, and re-
membered that he had not been entirely bad. In some
ways, he had even been a friend.

Miriamele suddenly felt ashamed of her callousness.
She had been so certain about things, so sure about what
was right and what was wrong that she had been ready to
let him drown. It was hard to look at Cadrach now, his
eyes wounded and frightened, his head bobbing above the

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER           205

stained robe. She squeezed his cold hand and said: "Don't
fear—I will return in a moment." She took her candle and
went off to search the ranked barrels for Gan Itai's prom-
ised tools-
She squinted at faded markings as footsteps echoed
back and forth overhead. The ship rolled abruptly, creak-
ing in the grasp of the storm's first winds- At last she
found a barrel helpfully marked "Otillenaes." When
she had also located a pry-bar that hung near the ladder,
she unlidded the cask. A treasure trove of tools were
packed inside, all neatly wrapped in leather and floating
in oil like exotic supper birds. She bit her lip and forced
herself to work calmly and carefully, unwrapping the ooz-
ing parcels one at a time until she found a chisel and a
heavy mallet. After wiping them off on the inside of her
cloak, she took them back to Cadrach.

"What are you doing. Lady? Do you plan to favor me
with a blow from that pig-slaughterer? It would be a true
favor."

She frowned, fixing the candle to the floor with hot
wax. "Don't be a fool. I'm going to cut your chains. Gan
Itai is helping us to escape."

The monk stared at her for a'moment, his pouchy gray
eyes surprisingly intent. "You must know that I cannot
walk, Miriamele."

"If I have to, I will carry you. But we will not go until
tonight. That will give you a chance to rub some life back
into your legs. Perhaps you can even stand up and try
pacing a bit, if you are quiet about it." She pulled at the
chain that hung from his ankles. "I suppose I must cut
this on each side or you will rattle when you walk, like a
tinker." Cadrach's smile, she guessed, was mostly for her
sake.

The long chain between his leg irons ran through one
of the tying-bolts in the floor of the hold. Miriamele
pulled one side taut, then set the chisel's sharp blade
against the nearest link to the shackle. "Can you hold it
for me?" she asked. "Then I can use both hands on the
hammer."

The monk nodded and clutched the spike of iron.

206 Tad Williams

Miriamele hefted the mallet a few times to get the feel of
it, then raised it above her head.

"You took like Deanagha of the Brown Eyes," he whis-
pered.

Miriamele was trying to listen to the creaking rhythm
of the boat's movement, hoping to find a noisy moment in
which to strike. "Like who?"

"Deanagha of the Brown Eyes." He smiled. "Rhynn's
youngest daughter. When his enemies surrounded him
and he lay sick, she pounded on his bronze cauldron with
her spoon until the other gods came to rescue him." He
stared at her. "Brave she was."

The boat rolled and the timbers gave out a long, shud-
dering groan.

"My eyes are green," Miriamele said, then brought the
mallet down as hard as she could. The clank seemed loud
as thunder. Certain that Aspitis and his men must now be
racing toward the hold, she looked down. The chisel had
bitten deep, but the chain was still uncut.

"Curse it," she breathed and paused to listen for a long,
anxious moment. There seemed no unusual sounds from
the deck above, so she lifted the mallet, then had a
thought. She took off her cloak and folded it over, then
folded it once more. She slid this cushion beneath the
chain. "Hold this," she ordered, and struck again.

It took several cuts, but me cloak helped soften the
noise, though it also made striking a hard blow more dif-
ficult. At last the iron link parted. Miriamele then
pounded laboriously through the other side as well, and
even managed to sever one side of Cadrach's wrist chains
before she had to stop. Her arms felt as though they were
afire; she could no longer lift the heavy mallet above her
shoulder. Cadrach tried, but was too weak. After he had
struck at it several times without making an appreciable
dent, he handed her back the hammer.

"This will be sufficient," he said. "One side is enough
to free me, and I can wrap the chain about my arm so it
will make no noise. The legs were what mattered, and
they are free." He wiggled his feet carefully to demon-

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER            207

strate. "Do you think you could find some dark cloth in
this hold?"

Miriamele looked at him curiously, but got up and be-
gan a weary search. At last she returned. Aspitis' knife,
which had been tied to her leg with a scarf, was in her
hand. 'There's nothing around. If you really need it, we'll
take it off the hem of my cloak." She kneeled and held
the blade over the dark fabric- "Shall I?"

Cadrach nodded. "I will use it to tie the chains to-
gether. That way they will hold unless someone pulls
them hard." He exerted the effort to grin. "In this light,
my guards will never notice that one of the links is made
of soft Erkynlandish wool."

When they had done this, and when all the tools had
been wrapped and replaced, Miriamele picked up her can-
dle and stood. "I will be back for you at midnight, or just
before."

"How is Gan Itai planning to work this little trick?"
There was a flavor of his old ironic tone.

"She has not told me. Probably she thinks it's best I
know little, so I will worry less." Miriamele shook her
head. "There she has failed."

"It is not likely that we will get off the boat, nor that
we will get far even if we do." The painful effort of the
last hour showed in Cadrach's every halting movement.

"Not likely at all," she agreed. "But Aspitis knows that
I am the High King's daughter and he is forcing me to
marry him, so I do not care what is likely or unlikely."
She turned to go.

"No, Lady, I imagine you do not. Until tonight, then."

Miriamele paused. Somewhere in the hour just passed,
as the chains were falling away, an unspoken understand-
ing had arisen between the two of them ... a sort of for-
giveness.

"Tonight," she said. She took the candle and made her
way back up the ladder, leaving the monk sitting in dark-
ness once more.

The hours of evening seemed to inch past. Miriamele

208 Tad Williams

lay in her cabin listening to the mounting storm, wonder-
ing where she would be this time tomorrow.

The winds grew stronger. The Eadne Cloud heaved and
rolled. When the earl's page came and rapped at the door
to say that his master bid her come to a late supper, she
claimed illness from the restless seas and declined the in-
vitation. A while later, Aspitis himself arrived.

"I am sorry to hear you are sick, Miriamele." He
lounged in the doorway, loose-jointed as any predator.
"Perhaps you would like to sleep in my cabin tonight, so
you will not be alone with your misery?"

She wanted to laugh at such hideous irony, but resisted.
"I am sick. Lord. When you marry me, I will do what you
say. Leave me this last night to myself."

He seemed inclined to argue, but shrugged instead. "As
you wish. I have had a long evening, preparing for the
storm. And, as you say, we still have our entire lives be-
fore us." He smiled, a line thin as a knife-slash. "So,
good night." He stepped forward and kissed her cold
cheek, then stepped to the small table and pinched the
wick of her lamp, snuffing the flame. "This will be a
rough night. You do not want to start a fire."

He walked out, pulling the door closed behind him. As
soon as his steps had receded down the passageway, she
leaped from her bed to make sure he had not somehow
locked her in- The door swung open freely, revealing the
dark corridor. Even with the upper hatchway closed, the
wail of the wind was loud, full of wild power. She closed
the door and went back to her bed-
Propped upright, swaying to the ship's powerful move-
ments, Miriamele drifted in and out of a light, restless
sleep, surfacing with a start from time to time, the rags of
dream still clinging, then hastening to the passageway
and up the ladder to sneak a look at the sky. Once she had
to wait so long for the moon to reappear in the
stormclouded heavens that, still not completely awake,
she feared that it had vanished altogether, chased away
somehow by her father and Pryrates. When it appeared at
last, a winking eye behind the murk, and she saw that it

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER 209

was still far from the place of which the Niskie had spo-
ken, Miriamele glided back to her bed.

It even seemed that once, as she lay half-awake, Gan
Itai opened the door and peered in at her. But if it was
truly her, the Niskie said nothing; a moment later, the
doorway was empty. Soon after, in a lull between gusts of
wind, Miriamele heard the sea-watcher's song keening
across the night.

When she could wait no longer, Miriamele rose. She
pulled out the bag she had hidden underneath the bed and
removed her monk's clothing, which she had put away in
favor of the lovely dresses Aspitis had provided. After
donning the breeches and shirt and belting the loose robe
close about her waist, she donned her old boots, then
threw a few select articles into the bag. Aspitis' knife,
which she had worn that afternoon, she now thrust under
her belt. Better to have it available than to worry about
discovery. If she met someone between here and Gan
Itai's cabin, she would have to try and hide the blade
under the robe's wide sleeve.

A quick inspection proved the corridor empty.
Miriamele tucked her sack under her arm and moved as
silently as she could down th& passageway, aided in her
stealth by the rain that was beating down on the deck
above her head like a drum struck by a thousand hands.
The Niskie's song, rising above the storm noises, had a
weird, unsettled quality, far less pleasant to the ear than
usual. Perhaps it was the Niskie's obvious unhappiness
coming out in her song, Miriamele thought. She shook
her head, disturbed.

Even a brief glance out through the hatchway left her
drenched. The torrential rains were being swept almost
sideways by the wind, and the few tamps still burning in
their hoods of translucent horn banged and capered
against the masts. The Eadne Cloud's crewmen, wound in
flapping cloaks, hurried about the decks like panicked
apes. It was a scene of wild confusion, but even so,
Miriamele felt her heart grow heavy. Every seaman
aboard seemed to be on deck and hard at work, eyes alert
for a tearing sail or a flapping rope. It would be impossi-

210 Tad Williams

ble for her and Cadrach to sneak from one side of the
boat to the other unobserved, let alone lower the heavy
landing boat and escape over the side- Whatever Gan Itai
had planned, the storm would surely bring the scheme to

rum.

The moon, though almost completely obscured, looked
to be near the place that the Niskie had indicated. As
Miriamele squinted into the rain, a pair of cursing sailors
approached the hatchway dragging a heavy coil of rope.
She quickly lowered the door and scrambled back down
the ladder, then hurried along the passage to Gan Itai's
room and the Niskie-hole that led to Cadrach.

The monk was awake and waiting. He seemed a little
improved, but his movements were still weak and slow.
As Miriamele wrapped the length of chain around his arm
and secured it with the strips from her cloak, she worried
about how she would manage to get him across the deck
to the landing boat unobserved.

When she had finished, Cadrach lifted his arm and
wagged it bravely. "It is almost no weight at all. Lady."

She stared at the heavy links, frowning. He was lying,
of course. She could see the strain in his face and his pos-
ture. For a moment she considered reopening the barrel
and having another try with hammer and chisel, but she
feared to take the time. Also, with the ship pitching so
strongly, there was a great chance she might somehow
wound herself or Cadrach by accident. She doubted their
escape would succeed, but it was her only hope. Now that
the time had come, she was determined to do her best.

"We must go soon. Here." She pulled a slim flask out
of her sack and handed it to Cadrach. "Just a few swal-
lows."

He took it with a wondering look. After the first gulp,
a smile spread over his face. He took several more long
drinks.

"Wine." He licked his lips. "Good red Perdruin! By
Usires and Bagba and ... and everyone else! Bless you,
Lady!" He took a breath and sighed. "Now I can die
happy."

"Don't die. Not yet. Let me have that."

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

211

Cadrach looked at her, then reluctantly handed over the
flask. Miriamele upended it and drank the last few swal-
lows, feeling the warmth trickle down her throat and nes-
tle into her stomach. She hid the empty vessel behind one
of the barrels.

"Now we will go." She picked up her candle and led
him to the ladder.

When Cadrach at last made his way up the ladder and
into the passageway of the Niskie-hole, he stopped to
catch his breath. As he wheezed, Miriamele considered
the next step. Overhead, the ship hummed and vibrated
beneath the downpour.

"There are three ways we can get out," she said aloud.
Cadrach, steadying himself against the rocking of the
ship, did not seem to be listening. "The hatchway out of
the hold—but that opens directly in front of the aft deck,
where there is always a steersman. In this weather some-
one will certainly be there and be wide awake. So that's
out." She turned to look at the monk. In the small circle
of candlelight, he was staring down at the passageway
boards beneath him. "We have two choices. Up through
the hatchway in the main passage, right past Aspitis and
all his sailors, or down this passage to the far end, which
probably opens onto the foredeck."

Cadrach looked up. "Probably?"

"Gan Itai never told me and I forgot to ask. But this is
a Niskie-hole; she said she uses it to get across the ship
quicldy. Since she always sings from the foredeck, that
must be the place it leads to."

The monk nodded wearily. "Ah."

"So I think we should go there. Perhaps Gan Itai is
waiting for us. She didn't say how we should get to the
landing boat or when she would meet us."

"I will follow you. Lady."

As they crawled along the narrow passageway, a huge
concussive thump made the very air in their ears seem to
burst. Cadrach let out a muffled cry of terror.

"Gods, what is it?" he gasped.
- "Thunder," said Miriamele. "The storm is here:"

212

Tad Williams

"Usires Aedon in His mercy, save me from boats and
the sea," Cadrach groaned. "They are all cursed. Cursed."

"From one boat to another, and even closer to the sea."
Miriamele began inching along again. "That's where
we're going—if we're lucky." She heard Cadrach come
scrambling after her.

Thunder tolled two more times before they reached the
end of the passage, each peal louder than the last. When
at last they crouched beneath the hatchway, Miriamele
turned and laid her hand on the monk's arm.

"I'm going to snuff the candle. Now be quiet."

She inched the heavy door up until the opening was as
wide as her hand. Rain flew and splashed. They were just
below the forecastle—the steps mounted up only a few
paces from the hatch—and some twenty cubits from the
portside railing. A glare of lightning momentarily il-
luminated the whole deck. Miriamele saw the sil-
houetted shapes of crewmen all around, caught in
mid-gesticulation as though painted on a mural. The sky
was pressing down on the ship, a roil of angry black
clouds that smothered the stars. She dropped down and let
the hatchway close as another smack of thunder rattled

the night.

"There are people all around," she said when the
echoes had faded. "But none of them are too close. If we
get to the rail and wear our hoods up, they may not notice
we are not of the crew. Then we can make our way aft to

the boat."

Without the candle she could not see the monk, but she
could hear him breathing in the narrow space beside her.
She had a sudden thought.

"I did not hear Gan Itai. She was not singing."

There was a moment's silence before Cadrach spoke. "I
am afraid, Miriamele," he said hoarsely. "If we are to go,
let us go soon, before I lose what little nerve I have left."

"I'm afraid, too," she said, "but I need to think for a
bit." She reached out and found his chilly hand, then held
it while she pondered. They sat that way for some while
before she spoke again. "If Gan Itai is not on the fore-
deck, then I don't know where she is. Maybe waiting for

TO  GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER

213

us at the landing boat, maybe not. When we get there,
we'll have to undo the tie-ropes that hold it to the ship—
all but one. 1*11 go look for her, and when I come back
we'll drop the boat down and jump into the water. If I
don't come back, you must do it yourself. It will only be
one knot, though. It won't take much strength."

"Jump ... into the water?" he stammered. "In this ter-
rible storm? And with those demon-creatures, those kilpa,
'swimming there?"

"Of course, jump," she whispered, trying to hold down
her annoyance. "If we let the boat go while we're in it,
we'll probably break our backs. Don't worry, I'll go first
and give you an oar to hang onto."

"You shame me. Lady," the monk said, but did not let
go of her hand. "It should be me protecting you. But you
know I hate the sea."

She squeezed his fingers. "I know. Come on, then. Re-
member, if someone calls to you, pretend you can't hear
them properly and keep walking. And keep your hand on
the railing, for the deck is sure to be slippery. You don't
want to go overboard before we get the landing boat into
the water."

Cadrach's laugh was giddy with fright. "You are right
about that. Lady. God save us all."

Another sound abruptly rose over the roar of the storm,
a little quieter than the thunder but somehow just as pow-
erful. Miriamele felt it surge through her and had to brace
herself against the wall for a moment as her knees be-
came weak. She could not think what it might be. There
was something terrible about it, something that went to
her heart like a spike of ice, but there was no time left to
hesitate. A moment later, when she had mastered herself
once more, she pushed up the hatchway door and they
clambered out into the driving rain.

The strange sound was all around, piercingly sweet yet
as frightfully compelling as the pull of a riptide. For a
moment it seemed to soar up beyond the range of mortal
ears, so that only a ghost of its fullness remained and her
skull was full of echoes that piped like bats; then, a mo-
ment later, it descended just as swiftly, swooping down so

214

Tad Williams

rumblingly deep that it might be singing the slow and
stony language of the ocean's floor. Miriamele felt as
though she stood inside a humming wasp's nest big as a
cathedral: the sound quivered right down to her innards.
A part of her burned with the need to fling her body into
sympathetic motion, to dance and scream and run in cir-
cles; another part of her wanted only to lie down and beat
her head against the desk until the sound stopped.

"God save us, what is that horrible noise?" Cadrach
wailed. He lost his balance and tumbled to his knees.

Clenching her teeth, Miriamele put her head down and
forced herself to inch away from the forecastle steps to-
ward the rail. Her very bones seemed to rattle. She
grabbed at the monk's sleeve and pulled him with her,
dragging him like a sledge across the slippery planks.
"It's Gan Itai," she gasped, fighting against the stunning
power of the Niskie's song. "We're too close."

The velvety darkness, lit only by the yellow-streaming
lanterns, suddenly went stark blue and white. The rail be-
fore her, Cadrach's hand in hers, the empty blackness of
the sea beyond both—all were seared on her eyes in an
explosive instant. A heartbeat later the lightning flared
again, and Miriamele saw, imprisoned in the flash, a
smooth round head poking up above the portside rail. As
the lightning faded and thunder double-cracked, another
half-dozen loose-jointed shapes came swarming onto the
ship, slick and gleaming in the dim lantern light. Realiza-
tion struck, hard as a physical blow; Miriamele turned,
stumbling and sliding, then plunged toward the starboard
side of the ship, dragging Cadrach after her.
"What is happening?" he shouted.
"It's Gan Itai!" Ahead of her sailors ran back and forth
like ants from a scattered nest, but it was no longer the
Eadne Cloud's crew she feared. "It is the Niskie!" Her
mouth filled with rainwater and she spat. "She is singing

the kilpa up!"

"Aedon save us!" Cadrach shrieked. "Aedon save us!"
Lightning glared again, revealing a host of gray,
froglike bodies slithering over the starboard rail. As the
kilpa flopped down onto the deck, they swung their gape-

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

215

mouthed faces from side to side, staring like pilgrims who
had finally reached a great shrine. One of them threw out
a thin arm and caught a reeling crewman, then seemed to
fold around him, dragging the screaming man down into
darkness as the thunder bayed. Sickened, Miriamele
turned and hurried along the length of the ship toward the
spot where the landing boat hung. Water tugged at her
feet and ankles. As in a nightmare, she felt that she could
not run, that she was going slower and slower. The gray
things continued to spill over the side, like ghouls from a
childhood tale swarming out of an unhallowed grave. Be-
hind her Cadrach was shouting incoherently. The Niskie's
maddening song hung over all, making the very night
pulse like a mighty heart.

The kilpa seemed to be everywhere, moving with a ter-
rible, lurching suddenness. Even through the noise of the
storm and Gan Itai's singing, the deck echoed with de-
spairing cries from the beleaguered crewmen. Aspitis and
two of his officers were backed against one of the masts,
holding off a half-dozen of the sea beasts; their swords
were little more than thin glints of light, darting, flashing.
One of the kilpa tottered backward, clutching at an arm
that was no longer attached to its body- The creature let
the limb fall to the deck, then hunched over it, gills puff-
ing. Black blood fountained from the stump.

"Oh, merciful Aedon!" Ahead, Miriamele could finally
see the dark shadow that was the boat. Even as she
dragged Cadrach toward it, one of the lamps burst against
the crosstree overhead, raining burning oil down onto the
watery deck. Gouts of steam leaped up all around and a
smoldering spark caught on Miriamele's sleeve. As she
hastily beat out the flame, the night erupted into orange
light. She looked up into a blinding torrent of raindrops.
A sail had caught fire, despite the storm, and the mast
was rapidly becoming a torch.

"The knots, Cadrach!" she shouted. Nearby, someone's
choking scream was buried in the rumble of thunder. She
grabbed at the rain-slicked rope and struggled, feeling
one of her fingernails tear as she tried to loose the swol-
len rope. At last it slipped free and she turned to the one

2l6 Tad Williams

beside it. The landing boat swung with the roll of the
ship, bumping her away from her task, but she hung on.
Nearby, Cadrach, pale as a corpse, struggled with another
of the four ropes that held the windlass over the deck of
the Eadne Cloud.

She felt a wave of cold even before the thing touched
her. She whirled, slipping and falling back against the
hull of the landing boat, but the kilpa took a step closer
and caught her trailing sleeve in its web-fingered hand.
Its eyes were black pools that glowed with the flames of
the burning sail. The mouth opened and then shut, opened
and shut. Miriamele screamed as it dragged her nearer.

There was a sudden rush of movement from out of the
shadows behind her. The kilpa fell back but retained its
grip on her arm, dragging her down after it so that her
outflung hand smacked the slippery resilience of its belly.
She gasped and tried to rip herself loose, but the webbed
hand gripped her too tightly. Its stench enwrapped her,
brine and mud and rotting fish.

"Run, Lady!" Cadrach's face appeared behind the crea-
ture's shoulder. He had pulled his chain taut around its
throat, but even as he tightened the strangling hold,
Miriamele saw the gills on the kilpa's neck pulsing in the
half-light, translucent wings of delicate gray flesh, pink at
the edges. She realized with a numbing sense of defeat
that the beast did not need its throat to breathe: Cadrach
had the chain too high. Even as he strained, the kilpa was
drawing her in toward the other reaching arm, toward its
slack mouth and gelid eyes.

Gan Itai's song ended abruptly, although its echo
seemed to linger for long moments. The only sounds that
rose above the wind now were screams of fear and the
dull hoots of the swarming sea-demons.

Miriamele had been fumbling at her belt, but at last her
hand closed around Aspitis' hawk-knife. Her heart
skipped as the hilt caught in a fold of her sodden robe,
but with a tug it came free. She shook it hard to knock
loose the sheath, then slashed at the gray arm that held
her. The knife bit, freeing a line of inky blood, but failed
to loosen the creature's grip.

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER

217

"Ah, God help us!" Cadrach screeched-

The kilpa rounded its mouth but made no sound, only
pulled her closer until she could see the rain beading on
its shiny skin and the soft, pale wetness behind its lips.
With a cry of disgusted rage, Miriamele threw herself for-
ward, plunging the knife into the thing's gummy midsec-
tion. Now it did make a sound, a soft, surprised whistle.
Blood bubbled out over Miriamele's hand and she felt the
creature's grasp weaken. She stabbed again, then again.
The kilpa spasmed and kicked for what seemed an eter-
nity, but at last fell limp. She rolled away. Then, shud-
dering, she plunged her hands down into cleansing water.
Cadrach's chain was still wrapped about the thing's neck,
making a grisly tableau for the next flash of lightning.
The monk's eyes were wide, his face stark white.

"Let it go," Miriamele gasped. "It's dead." Thunder
echoed her.

Cadrach kicked the thing, then crawled on his hands
and knees toward the landing boat, struggling for breath.
Within moments he had recovered enough to fumble open
his two knots, then he helped Miriamele, whose hands
were shaking uncontrollably, to finish hers. With one of
the oars they swung the scaffolding out from the side of
the ship, guiding it until it was perpendicular to the deck
and only one tie held the boat suspended from the wind-
lass over the dark, surging water.

Miriamele turned to look back across the ship. The
mast was burning like an Yrmansol tree, a pillar of flame
whipped by the winds. There were pockets of struggling
men and kilpa scattered across the deck, but there also
seemed to be a relatively clear line between the landing
boat and the forecastle.

"Stay here," she said, pulling her hood down to ob-
scure her face. "I must find Gan ItaL"

Cadrach's look of astonishment quickly turned to rage.
"Are you mad? Goirach cilagh! You will find your
death!"

Miriamele did not bother to argue. "Stay here. Use the
oar to protect yourself. If I don't come back soon, drop
the boat and follow it. I will swim to you if I can." She

2l8

Tad Williams

turned and trotted back across the deck with the knife
clutched in her fist.

Pretty Eadne Cloud had become a hell-ship—
something that might have been crafted by the devil's
boatwrights to torment sinners on the deepest seas of
damnation. Water covered much of the deck, and the fire
from the central mast had spread to some of the other
sails. Burning rags rode the winds like demons. The few
bloodied sailors who still remained topside had the
crushed, brutalized look of prisoners punished far past
what any crime could warrant- Many kilpa had been
slaughtered, too—a pile of their corpses lay near the mast
where Aspitis and his officers had fought, although at
least one human leg protruded from the heap—and quite
a few more of the sea creatures seemed to have seized a
meal and leaped back overboard, but others still hopped
and slid after survivors.

Miriamele waded to the foredeck without being set
upon, although she had to pass much closer than she
wished to several groups of feeding kilpa- A part of her
was amazed to find that she could look on such things
without being overcome by terror. Her heart, it seemed,
had hardened: a year before, any one of these atrocities
would have had her weeping and searching for a place to
hide. Now she felt that if she had to, she could walk
through fire.

She reached the stairs and made her way swiftly up to
the forecastle- The Niskie had not stopped singing alto-
gether: a thin drone of melody still hung over the fore-
deck, a thin shadow of the power that had outstormed
even the wind. The sea watcher sat cross-legged on the
deck, bent forward so that her face nearly touched the
planks.

"Can Itai," Miriamele said- "The boat is ready!
Come!"

At first the Niskie did not respond. Then, when she sat
up, Miriamele gasped. She had never seen such wretched-
ness on the face of a living creature.

"Ah, no!" the Niskie croaked- "By the Uncharted, go
away! Go!" She waved her hand feebly. "I have done this

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

219

for your freedom. Do not make the crime pointless by
failing your escape!"

"But aren't you going to come?'"

The Niskie moaned. Her face seemed to have aged a
hundred years. Her eyes were sunken deep into her head,
their luster burned away. "I cannot leave. I am the ship's
only hope to survive. It will not change my guilt, but it
will ease my ruined heart. May Ruyan forgive me—it is
an evil world that has brought me to this!" She threw
back her head and gave out a groan of misery that
brought Miriamele to tears. "Go!" the Niskie wailed.
"Go! I beg you!"

Miriamele tried again to plead with her, but Gan Itai
lowered her face to the deck once more. After a long si-
lence, she at last resumed her weak, mournful song. The
rain eased for a moment as the wind changed direction.
Miriamele saw that only a few figures still moved on the
firelit deck below. She stared at the huddled Niskie, then
made the sign of the Tree and went down the stairs. She
would think later. Later she would wonder why. Later.

It was a wounded sailor, not a kilpa, who grabbed at
Miriamele on her return. When she slashed at his hand
the crewman let go and collapsed back onto the sloshing
deck. A few steps farther along she waded past the body
of Thures, the earl's young page. There were no signs of
violence upon him. The boy's dead face was peaceful be-
neath the shallow water, his hair undulating like seaweed-

Cadrach was so happy to see her he did not utter a
single word of reproach or ask any questions about her
solitary return. Miriamele stared at where the last
windlass-rope was tied, then reached out with the dagger
and sawed through it, leaning back as the cut end
whipped free. The winding-drum spun and the landing
boat plummeted down. A fountain of white spray sprang
up as it hit the waves.

Cadrach handed her the oar he had been clutching.
"Here, Miriamele. You're tired. It will help you float,"

"Me?" she said, surprised almost into a smile,

A third voice interrupted them. "There you are, my dar-
ling."

220

Tad Williams

She whirled to see a ghastly figure limping toward
them. Aspitis had been slashed bloody in a dozen places,
and a long cut that snaked down his cheek had closed one
eye and flecked his golden locks with gore, but he still
held his long sword- He was still as beautiful and terrify-
ing as a stalking leopard.

"You were going to leave me?" he asked mockingly.
"Not stay and help clean up after our ..." he grinned, a
dreadful sight, and gestured toward him, "... our wed-
ding guests f He took another step forward, waving the
sword slowly from side to side. It glinted in the light of
burning sails like a whisker of red-hot iron. It was
strangely fascinating to watch it pass back and forth .. -
back and forth... *

Miriamele shook her head and stood up straighter. "Go

to hell."

Aspitis' smile dropped away. He leveled the tip of the
sword toward her eye. Cadrach, who stood behind her,
cursed helplessly. "Should I kill you," the earl mused, "or
will you still be useful?" His eyes were as inhuman as a

kilpa's.

"Go ahead and kill me. 1 would die before I let you
have me again." She stared at him. "You are paying the
Fire Dancers, aren't you? For Pryrates?"

Aspitis shook his head. "Some only. Those who are not
... firm believers. But they are all useful." He frowned.
"I do not wish to talk of such unimportant things. You are
mine. I must decide ..."

"I have something that is yours," she said, and raised
the dagger before her. Aspitis smiled oddly, but lifted his
sword-blade to fend off a sudden throw. Instead,
Miriamele tossed the knife into the water at his feet. His
dreaming eye caught its glitter and followed it down. As
his head dipped, ever so slightly, Miriamele thrust the oar
handle into his gut. He gasped for breath and took a stag-
gering step backward, his sword jabbing blindly like the
sting of an injured bee. Miriamele brought the oar up
again with both hands, then swung it with all the might of
her arms and back, sweeping it around in a great arc that
ended with a crunch of bone. Aspitis shrieked and fell to

TO GREEN ANGF-L TOWER               221

the deck holding his face. Blood spurted from between
his fingers.

"Hah!" Cadrach shouted with exultant relief. "Look at
you, you devil! Now, you will have to find something else
to bait your woman-trap with!"

Miriamele fell to her knees, then pushed the oar across
the slippery deck to Cadrach. "Go," she panted. "Take
this and jump."

The monk stood in confusion for a moment, as if he
could not remember where he was, then staggered to the
side of the ship. He closed his eyes and muttered some
words, then plunged overboard. Miriamele rose and took
a last look at the earl, who was bubbling red froth out
onto the deck, then scrambled over the railing and pushed
herself out into emptiness. For a moment she was falling,
flying through the dark. When the water closed on her
like a cold fist, she wondered if she would ever come
back up, or if instead she would just continue downward
into the ultimate depths, into blackness and quiet....

She did come up. When she had reached the boat and
helped Cadrach to clamber aboard, they fitted the oars
and began to row away from the wounded ship. The
storm still hovered overhead^ but it was diminishing.
Eadne Cloud grew smaller behind them until it was only
a point of burning light on the black horizon, a tiny flame
like a dying star.

Storm King's AnviC

A

At tfte TlOtftenrmOSt edge of the world the mountain
stood, an upthrusting fang of icy stone that shadowed the
entire landscape, towering high above even the other
peaks. For long weeks the smokes and steams and vapors
had crept from vents in the mountain's side. Now they
wreathed Stormspike's crown, spinning in the awesome
winds that circled the mountain, gathering and darkening
as though they sucked the very substance of ultimate
night from between the stars.

The storm grew and spread. The few scattered folk who
still lived within sight of the terrible mountain huddled in
their longhouses as the beams creaked and the wind
howled. What seemed an unceasing blizzard of snow
piled above their walls and onto their roofs, until all that
remained were white mounds like so many grave bar-
rows, marked as dwellings of the living only by the thin
pennants of smoke that fluttered above the chimney-
holes.

The vast expanse of open land known as the Frost-
march was also engulfed by driving snows. Only a few
years before, the vast plain had been dotted with small
hamlets, thriving towns and settlements fed by the traffic
of the Wealdhelm and Frostmarch roads. After half a
dozen seasons of continuous snow, with crops long dead
and virtually all the animals fled or eaten, the land had
become a desolate waste. Those who huddled in the foot-
hills along its border or in the sheltering forests knew it
as the home only of wolves and wandering ghosts, and

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER

223

had come to call the Frostmarch by a new name—the
Storm King's Anvil. Now an even greater storm, a dread-
ful hammer of frost and cold, was pounding on that anvil
once more.

The storm's long hand reached out even beyond
Erkynland to the south, sending gusts of freezing wind
across the open grasslands, turning the Thrithings bone-
white for the first time in memory. And snow returned to
Perdruin and Nabban—the second time in a season, but
only the third time in five centuries, so that those who
had once scoffed at the Fire Dancers and their dire warn-
ings now felt a squeeze of fear on their hearts, a fear
much more chilling than the powdery snow sifting down
onto the domes of the two Sancellans.

Like a tide moving toward some unimaginable high
water mark, the storm spread farther than ever before,
bringing frost to southern lands that had never felt its
touch and draping a great cold shroud over all of Osten
Ard. It was a storm that numbed hearts and crushed spir-
its.

*

"That way!" the leading rider shouted, pointing to the
left. "A prenteiz, men—up and after!" He spurred forward
so swiftly that his clouded breath was left hanging in the
air behind him. Snow spouted from beneath his horse's
hooves.

He bore down on the empty space between two tumble-
down, snow-covered dwellings, his mount slashing
through the drifts as effortlessly as through fog. A dark
shape bolted out into the open from behind one of the
buildings and dashed away, bounding erratically across
the flat. The leading pursuer vaulted a low, snow-buried
fence, landed, and followed close after. The horse's
pounding strides obliterated the smaller prints of its flee-
ing quarry, but there was no need now for tracking: the
end was in sight. Half a dozen other riders came hurtling
from between the houses and spread out like an opening
fan, surrounding the quarry like a riverman's fishing net.

224 Tad Williams

A moment to draw the net closed—the riders reining in as
a narrowing circle—then the hunt was over. One of the
men who had ridden the wing leaned down until his lance
touched the captive's heaving side. The leader dis-
mounted and took a step forward.

"Well run," said Duke Fengbald, grinning. "That was
excellent sport."

The boy stared up at him, eyes wide with terror.

"Shall I finish him. Lord?" asked the rider with the
lance. He gave the boy a hard poke. The child squealed
and flinched away from the sharp lance-head.

Fengbald peeled off his gauntlet, then turned and flung
it into the rider's face. Its metal beadwork left a cross-
hatching on the man's cheek that welled with blood.
"Dog!" Fengbald scowled. "What am I—a demon? You
will be whipped for that." The rider shied away, pulling
his horse a few steps back from the circle. Fengbald
glared after him. "I do not murder innocent children." He
turned his eyes down to the cowering boy. "We had a
game, that is all. Children love games. This one has
played with us as well as he could." The duke retrieved
his gauntlet and put it back on, then smiled. "And a merry
chase you led us, boy. What is your name?"

The child grimaced, baring his teeth like a treed cat,
but made no sound.

"Ah, too bad," Fengbald said with a philosophical air.
"If he will not talk, he will not talk. Put him with the
rest—one of these shack-women will feed him. They say
a bitch will always nurse a stranger's pups."

One of Fengbald's men-at-arms dismounted and
grabbed the boy, who put up no resistance as he was
draped across the front of the soldier's saddle.

"I think he is the last," said Fengbald. "The last of our
sport, too. A shame—but still, better than if we let them
run ahead of us and spoil our surprise." He grinned     ^'
broadly, pleased with his own wit. "Come. I want a warm      |
cup of wine to take off the chill. This was a hard, cold
ride."

He vaulted up into the saddle, then swung his mount

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER                           225

around and led his company back into the snow-
smothered remnants of Gadrinsett.

Duke Fengbald's red tent sat in the middle of the
snowy meadow like a ruby in a puddle of milk. The silver
falcon, the duke's family emblem, stretched its wings
from corner to comer above the door-flap; in the stiff
winds that blew down the river valley, the great bird
trembled as though longing to take flight. The tents of the
duke's army were clustered all around, but set at a re-
spectful distance.

Inside, Fengbald reclined on a pile of figured cushions,
his cup of mulled wine—several times refilled since he
had returned—held loosely, his dark hair unbound and
trailing down across his shoulders. At Elias' coronation
Fengbald had been lean as a young hound. Now the mas-
ter of Palshire, Utanyeat, and the Westfold had grown a
little soft in the waist and jowls. A fair-haired woman
kneeled on the floor near his feet. A thin page, pale and
anxious-looking, waited at his lord's right hand.

On the far side of the brazier that warmed the tent was
a tall man, squint-eyed and bearded, dressed in the leather
and rough wool of the Thrithings-dweller. Refusing to sit
as city-folk did, he stood spread-legged, arms crossed.
When he shifted, his necklace of finger-bones made a
clinking music.

"What else is there to know?" he demanded. "Why
more talking?"

Fengbald stared at him, eyes slowly blinking. He was a
little befuddled by drink, which for once seemed to curb
his belligerence. "I must like you, Lezhdraka," he said at
last, "because otherwise I would have become sick of
your questions long ago."

The mercenary chieftain stared back, unimpressed.
"We know where they are. What more do we ask?"

The duke took another drink, then wiped his mouth
with the sleeve of his silken shirt and gestured to his
page. "More, Isaak." He returned his attention to
Lezhdraka. "I learned some things from old Guthwulf, for
all his failings. I have been given the keys to a great king-

226

Tad Williams

dom. They are in my hand, and I will not throw them
away by acting too fast."

"Keys to a kingdom?" said the Thrithings-man scorn-
fully. "What stone-dweller nonsense is that?"

Fengbald seemed pleased by the mercenary's incom-
prehension. "How do you plains-folk ever hope to drive
me and the other city-dwellers into the sea, as you are al-
ways babbling about? You have no craft, Lezhdraka, no
craft at all. Just go and fetch the old man. You like the
night air—do your people not sleep, eat, piss, and sport
beneath the stars?" The duke chuckled.

The High King's Hand, having turned to watch his
page fill his cup, did not witness the Thrithings-man's
venomous look as he left the tent. But for the wind strum-
ming the fabric, the tent fell quiet.

"So, my sweet," Fengbald said at last, prodding the si-
lent woman with his slippered foot, "how does it feel to
know that you belong to the man who will one day hold
all the land in his grasp?" When she did not reply, he
pushed her again, more roughly. "Speak, woman."

She looked up slowly. Her pretty face was empty,
drained of life as a corpse's. "It is good, my lord," she
murmured at last, the Westerling words thickly accented
by a Hemystiri burr. She let her head sink back down, her
hair falling like a curtain before her features. The duke
looked around impatiently.

"And you, Isaak? What do you think?"

"It is well, master," the page said hurriedly. "If you say
it will happen, it will happen."

Fengbald smiled. "Of course it will. How can I fail?"
He paused for a moment, frowning at the boy's expres-
sion, then shrugged. There were worse things than being

feared.

"Only a fool," he resumed, quickly warming to the
topic once more, "only a fool, I say, could not see that
King Elias is a dying man." He waved his hand expan-
sively, slopping a little wine over the rim of his cup.
"Whether he has caught some wasting illness, or whether
the priest Pryrates is slowly poisoning him, I do not care.
The red priest is an idiot if he thinks he can rule the

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

227

kingdom—he is the most hated man in Osten Ard. No.
when Elias dies, only someone of noble blood will be
able to rule. And who will that be? Guthwulf has gone
blind and run away." He laughed shortly. "Benigaris of
Nabban? He cannot even rule his own mother. And Skali
the Rimmersman is no more noble or civilized than that
animal Lezhdraka. So when I have killed Josua—if he
even truly lives—and put down this petty rebellion, who
else will be fit to rule?" Excited by his own words, he
drained the remainder of his cup in a single draught.
"Who else? And who would oppose me? The king's
daughter, that fickle slut?" He paused and eyed the page
intently, so that the young boy towered his gaze. "No,
perhaps if Miriamele came begging to me on her knees, I
might make her my queen—but I would keep her closely
watched. And she would be punished for spuming me."
He smirked and leaned forward, placing his hand on the
pale neck of the woman who knelt before him. "But never
fear, little Feurgha, I would not cast you aside for her. I
will keep you, too." As she shrunk away he tightened his
hand, holding her, enjoying the tension of her resistance.

The tent flap bulged and flapped inward. Lezhdraka en-
tered, snowflakes shimmering "in his hair and beard. He
held the arm of an old man whose bald head was red with
too much sun and whose white ruff of beard was stained
and discolored by the juices of citril root. Lezhdraka
roughly shoved the man forward. The captive took a few
stumbling steps, then fell stiffly to his knees at
Fengbald's feet and did not look up. His neck and shoul-
ders, exposed by the open collar of his thin shirt, were
covered with yellowing bruises.

When the nervous page had filled the duke's cup once
more, Fengbald cleared his throat. "You look somewhat
familiar. Do I know you?" The old man wagged his head
from side to side. "So. You may look up. You claim to be
the Lord Mayor of Gadrinsett?"

The old man nodded slowly. "I am," he croaked.

"You were. Not that there would be much glory in be-
ing mayor of this pesthole in any case. Tell me what you
know about Josua."

228 Tad Williams

"I ... I don't understand, Lord."
Fengbald leaned forward and gave him a brief but solid
push. The Lord Mayor toppled over to lie on his side; he
did not seem to have the strength to sit up again. "Don't
play the fool with me, old man. What have you heard9"

Still curled on his side, the Lord Mayor coughed.
"Nothing that you have not learned. Duke Fengbald," he
quavered, "nothing. Riders came from the evil-omened
valley up the Stefflod. They said that Josua Lackhand had
escaped from his brother, that he and a band of warriors
and magicians had driven out the demons and made a
stronghold on the witch-mountain in the middle of the
valley. That all who came to join him there would be fed,
and have places to live, and that they would be protected
from bandits and from . . . and from . . ." his voice
dropped, "... from the High King's soldiers."

"And you think it is a pity you did not listen to these
treasonous rumors, eh?" Fengbald asked. "You think that
perhaps Prince Josua might have saved you from the
king's vengeance?"

"But we did no wrong, my lord'" the old man moaned.
"We did no wrong!"

Fengbald looked at him with perfect coldness. "You
harbored traitors, since everyone who joins Josua is a
traitor. Now, how many are with him on this witch-
mountain?"

The mayor shook his head vehemently. "I do not know,
lord. In time, some few hundred of our folk went. The
first riders who came said there were five or six score
there already, I think."

"Counting women and children?"

"Yes, lord."

Fengbald snapped his fingers- "Isaak, go find a guards-
man and bid him come to me."

"Yes, sire." The youth hurried out, happy with any er-
rand that took him out of his master's reach for a few
moments.

"A few more questions." The duke settled back against
the cushions. "Why did your people believe it was Josua?

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER 229

Why should they leave a safe haven to go to a place of
bad reputation?"

The old man shrugged helplessly. "One of the women
who lived here claimed she had met Josua—that she had
sent him to the rock herself. A gossipy creature, but well-
known She swore that she had fed him at her fire and had
marked him instantly as the prince. Many were convinced
by her. Others went because ... because they heard you
were coming. Duke Fengbald. People from Erkynland and
the western Thrithmgs came here, fleeing ... moving east
ahead of your lordship's progress." He cringed as if ex-
pecting a blow. "Forgive me, lord." A tear ran down his
wrinkled cheek.

The tent flap rustled. Isaak the page entered, followed
by a helmeted Erkynguardsman. "You wanted me, lord?"
the soldier said.

"Yes." Fengbald gestured toward the old man. "Take
this one back to the pens. Treat him roughly, but do not
hurt him. I will wish to speak to him again later." The
duke turned, "You and I have things to talk about,
Lezhdraka." The guardsman dragged the mayor to his
feet. Fengbald watched the process with contempt. "Lord
Mayor, is it?" he snorted. 'There is not a drop of lordly
blood in you, peasant."

The old man's rheumy eyes opened wide, staring at
Fengbald. For a moment, it seemed he might do some-
thing entirely mad; instead, he shook his head like some-
one waking from a dream. "My brother was a nobleman,"
he said hoarsely, then a fresh outpouring of tears spilled
down his cheeks. The soldier grabbed his elbow and has-
tened him out of the tent.

Lezhdraka stared insolently at Fengbald. " 'Do not hurt
him?' I thought you were harder than that, city-man."

A slow, drunken smile spread across Fengbald's face.
"What I said was, 'treat him roughly but do not hurt him.*
I don't want the rest of his folk to know he will spill his
guts any time I ask. And he may prove useful to me
somehow, either as a spy in the pens or as a spy among
Josua's folk. Those traitors take in all who flee my terri-
ble wrath, do they not?"

230 Tad Williams

The Thrithings-man squinted. "Do you think my horse-
men and your armored city-dwellers cannot smash your
king's enemies?"

Fengbald waved an admonitory finger. "Never throw a
weapon away. You never know when you may need it.
That's another lesson that sightless fool Guthwulf taught
me." He laughed, then waved his cup. His page scurried
after the wine ewer. -

Outside, darkness had fallen. The duke's tent glowed
crimson, smoldering like an ember half-buried in fire-
place ashes.

A

A rat, Rachel thought bitterly. Now I'm no better than
a rat in the walls.

She peered out at the darkened kitchen and suppressed
a bitter curse. It was just as well that Judith had long
since quit the Hayholt. If the huge, galleon-stately Mis-
tress of the Kitchens were to see the condition of her be-
loved domain, it would probably kill her dead. Rachel the
Dragon's own work-callused hands itched as she felt her-
self torn between a desire to repair the damage and an
equally strong urge to throttle whoever had let the castle
fall into this dreadful state.

The Hayholt's great kitchen might have become a den
of wild dogs. The pantry doors were off their hinges and
the few remaining sacks of foodstuffs lay ripped and scat-
tered about the chamber. It was the waste as much as the
filth that set a fire of anger burning in Rachel's heart.
Flour lay all across the floors, ground into the cracks be-
tween flagstones, crisscrossed with the prints of heedless,
booted feet. The great ovens were black with grease, the
baking paddles charred from inexpert use. Staring out at
the wreckage from her hiding hole behind a hanging cur-
tain, Rachel felt tears coursing down her face.

God should strike those who did this dead. This is
wickedness with no purpose—devil's work.

And the kitchen, for all the damage done, was one of
the places least affected by the evil changes that had over-

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER

231

taken the Hayholt. Rachel had seen much in her forays
out of hiding, all of it disheartening. The fires were no
longer set in most of the great chambers and the dark
hallways were almost misty with cold. The shadows
seemed to have lengthened, as though a strange twilight
had settled over the castle: even on the days when the sun
broke through the clouds, the Hayholt's passages and gar-
dens were steeped in shade. But the night itself had be-
come almost too frightening to bear. When the dim sun
set, Rachel found herself hiding-places in the abandoned
places of the castle and did not stir until dawn. The un-
earthly sounds that floated through the darkness were
enough to make her pull her shawl over her head, and
sometimes as evening came along there were shifting, un-
solid shapes that hovered just at the edge of vision. Then,
when the bells rang midnight, dark-robed demons silently
walked the halls.

Clearly some dreadful magic was at work all around.
The ancient castle seemed almost to breathe, imbued with
a chilling vitality that it had never had before, for all its
illustrious history. Rachel could feel a crouching pres-
ence, patient but alert as a predatory beast, that seemed to
inhabit the very stones. No, this ruined kitchen was only
the smallest, mildest sample of the evil Elias had brought
down on her beloved home.

She waited, listening, until she was certain no one was
about, then pushed her way out past the curtain. The
closet behind this hanging had a false back hung with
shelves of vinegar and mustard jars; the shelves hid a pas-
sageway into one of the network of corridors that ran be-
hind, above, and beneath the Hayholt's walls. Rachel,
who for many weeks now had made her home in these
between-places, still marveled at the web of secret ways
that had surrounded her all her life, unseen and unrecog-
nized as a riot of mole tunnels beneath a formal garden.

Now I know where that rascal Simon used to disappear
to. By the Blessed Mother, no wonder I sometimes thought
the boy'd been swallowed up by the earth when there was
work to be done.

She made her way out to the center of the kitchen,

Tad Williams

moving as quietly as her stiff old bones would allow so
she would not obscure the sounds of anyone approaching.
There were few people left in the great keep these days—
Rachel did not think of the king's white-faced demons as
people—but there were still some mercenaries from the
Thrithings and elsewhere billeted in me castle's scores of
empty rooms. It was such barbarians as those, Rachel felt
sure, who had reduced Judith's kitchen to its hideous con-
dition. Surely abominations like those devil-Norns did not
even eat earthly food. Drank blood most likely, if the
Book of the Aedon was any guide—and it had been Ra-
chel's only guide since she was old enough to understand
what the priests said.

There was nothing remotely fresh to be found any-
where. More than once Rachel opened a jar to discover
the contents rotted, covered with blue or white mold, but
after much patient searching she was able to find two
small containers of salted beef and a jug of vegetables
pickled in brine that had rolled beneath a table and some-
how been missed. She also discovered three loaves of
bread, hard and stale, wrapped in a napkin in one of the
pantries. Although the sample piece she pulled from a
loaf was painfully hard to chew—Rachel had few teeth
left, and felt sure that such fare as this would finish off
the survivors—it was edible, and when dipped in the beef
brine would make a nice change indeed. Still, this raid
had turned up scant results. How much longer would she
be able to keep herself alive on what she could thieve
from the Hayholt's untended larders? Thinking of the
days ahead, she shivered. It was horribly cold, even in the
rock fastness of the castle's internal passageways. How
long could she go on?

She wrapped the fruits of her scavenging in her shawl
and dragged the heavy bundle across the floor toward the
closet and its hidden door, doing her best to obscure the
tracks she made in the flour. When she reached the closet,
where the flour—so eerily like the snow outside—had not
yet drifted, she unwrapped her take for a moment and
used the shawl to brush away all the nearest marks, so

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER                           233

that no one might wonder at tracks that disappeared into
an abandoned closet and failed to come out again.

As she was rebundling her salvage, she heard voices in
the hallway outside. A moment later, the great kitchen
doors began to swing inward. Her heart suddenly beating
as swiftly as a bird's, Rachel leaned forward and caught
at the curtain with fumbling fingers, then pulled the hang-
ing across the closet entrance just as the outer door
thumped back against the wall and booted footsteps
sounded on the flagstones.

"Damn him and his grinning face, where is he?!"

Rachel's eyes widened as she recognized the king's
voice-

"I know I heard someone in here!" Elias shouted.
There was a crash as something was swept off one of the
knife-scarred tables, then the rhythmic clatter of someone
pacing back and forth across the great length of the
kitchen floor. "I hear everything in this castle, every foot-
step, every murmur, until my head pounds with it! He
must have been here! Who else could it be?"

"I told you. Majesty, I do not know."

The Mistress of Chambermaids' heart skipped and
seemed to stumble between beats. That was Pryrates. She
thought of him as he had stood before her—her knife
standing from his back, no more effective than a twig—
and felt herself sagging toward the floor. She reached out
a hand to steady herself and brushed against a copper
trivet hanging on the wall, setting it swinging. Rachel
grasped it, holding its heavy weight out from the wall so
that it would make no noise.

Like a rat! Her thoughts were wild and fragmented.
Like a rat. Trapped in the walls. Cats outside.

"Aedon burn and blast him, he is not to leave my
side!" Elias' hoarse voice, teetering on the edge of some
strange despair, seemed almost to reflect Rachel's own
panic. "Hengfisk!" he shouted. "Damn your soul, where
are you!?" The sound of the king's furious pacing re-
sumed. "When I find him, I will slit his throat."

'7 will prepare your cup for you, Majesty. I will do it
for you now. Come."

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Tad Williams

"It's not just that. What is he doing? Where could he
be? He has no right to go off wandering!"

"He will be back soon, I'm sure," the priest said. He
sounded impatient. "His needs are few, and easily satis-
fied. Come now, Elias, we should go back to your
chamber."

"He's hiding'" Rachel could hear the king's steps sud-
denly grow louder. He stopped, and she heard a squeak of
hinges as he yanked at one of the broken doors. "He is
hiding in the shadows somewhere!"

The footsteps approached. Rachel held her breath, try-
ing to be as stilt as stone. She heard the king come nearer,
muttering angrily as he yanked at doors and kicked piles
of fallen hangings out of his way. Her head whirled.
Darkness seemed to descend before her eyes, a darkness
threaded with fluttering sparks of light.

"Majesty!" Pryrates voice was sharp. The king stopped
thrashing and quiet descended on the kitchen. "This is ac-
complishing nothing. Come. Let me prepare your cup.
You are overtired."

Elias groaned softly, a terrible sound like a beast in
final pain. At last, he said: "When will it all end,
Pryrates?"

"Soon, Majesty." The priest's voice resumed its sooth-
ing tone- "There are certain rituals to be performed on
Harrow's Eve. Then, after the year turns, the star will
come and that will show that the final days are at hand.
Soon after, your waiting will be over."

"Sometimes I cannot bear the pain, Pryrates. Some-
times I wonder if anything is worth this pain."

"Surely the greatest gift of all is worth any price,
Elias." Pryrates' footfalls moved closer. "Just as the pain
is beyond what others must bear, so are you brave beyond
other men. Your reward will be equally splendid,"

The two men moved away from her hiding spot. Rachel
let out her breath in a near-silent hiss.

"I am burning up."

"I know, my king." The doors thumped shut behind
them.

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER                           235

Rachel the Dragon sank to a crouch on the closet floor.
Her hand shook as she traced the sign of the Tree.

A

Guthwulf could feel stone at his back and stone be-
neath his feet, and yet at the same moment he felt that he
stood before a great abyss. He folded to his knees and
reached cautiously before him, patting at the ground, cer-
tain that any moment he would feel his hand waving in
empty space. But nothing was before him but more of the
endless stone of the passageway floor.

"God help me, I am cursed!" he shouted. His voice rat-
tled and echoed from a distant ceiling, obliterating for a
moment the whispering chorus that had surrounded him
for a length of time he could not guess. "Cursed!" He fell
forward, cradling his face on his outstretched arms in an
unconscious attitude of prayer, and wept.

He knew only that he must be somewhere beneath the
castle- Since the moment he had stepped through the un-
seen doorway, fleeing from flames that burned so hot that
he was certain they would char him to cinders, he had
been as lost as a damned soul. He had wandered through
these mazy depths so long that he could no longer re-
member the feeling of wind and sunshine on his face, no
longer recall the taste of food other than cold worms and
beetles. And always the ... others ... had accompanied
him, the quiet murmurs just below the level of intelligibil-
ity, the ghostly things that seemed to move beside him but
mocked his blindness by slipping away before he could
touch them. Countless days he had stumbled miseeing"
through this netherworld of mournful whispers and shift-
ing forms, until life was only that which made him sensi-
ble to torment. He had become little more than a cord
tight-stretched between terror and hunger. He was cursed.
There could be no other explanation.

Guthwulf rolled over onto his side and slowly sat up. If
Heaven was punishing him for the wickedness of his life,
how long would it go on? He had always scoffed at the
priests and their talk of eternity, but now he knew that

236

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even an hour could stretch to a terrible, infinite length.
What could he do to end this dreadful sentence?

"I have sinned!" he screamed, his voice a hoarse croak.
"I have lied and killed, even when I knew it was wrong!
Sinned!" The echoes flew and dissipated. "Sinned," he
whispered.

Guthwulf crawled forward another cubit, praying that
the pit he had sensed was truly there before him, a hole
into which he would tumble and perhaps find the release
of death—if he were not already dead. Anything was
preferable to this unending emptiness. Were it not as
grave a sin as the murder of another, he would have long
since smashed his head against the stone that surrounded
him until life fled, but he feared that he would only find
himself awakened to an even more dreadful sentence after
the added crime of self-slaughter. He groped ahead in
desperation, but his crawling ringers found nothing but
more stone, the unending, winding passageway floor.

Surely this was but another element of his punishment,
the shifting reality of his prison. Just as a moment earlier
he had known beyond doubt that a great chasm lay before
him—a chasm that his fingers now proved did not
exist—he had at other times encountered great columns
that rose to the ceiling, and had run his hands over their
intricate carvings, trying to read in their crafted textures
some message of hope, only to find a moment later that
he stood in the midst of a great and empty chamber as va-
cant of columns as it was of other human company.

What of the others, he suddenly wondered? What of
Elias and the devil Pryrates? Surely if divine justice had
been meted out, they had not escaped—not with crimes
on their souls vaster and more evil by far than Guthwulf *s
poor tally. What had happened to them, and to all the
other uncountable sinners who had lived and died on the
spinning earth? Was each condemned to his or her own
solitary damnation? Did others as afflicted as Guthwulf
wander just on the other side of the stone walls, wonder-
ing if they, too, were the last creatures in the universe?

He clambered to his feet and stumbled toward the wall,
pounding on it with the flat of his hand. "Here I am!" he

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER

237

cried. "I am!" He let his fingers drag down the cool,
faintly damp surface as he slumped to the floor again.

In all the years when he had been alive—for he could
not help but feel that his life was now over, even if he
still seemed to inhabit a body that hurt and hungered—
Guthwulf had never realized the simple wonder of com-
panionship. He had enjoyed his associations with
others—the rough company of men, the satisfying com-
pliance of women—but he had always been able to do
without them. Friends had died or left. Some Guthwulf
had been forced to turn his back on when they opposed
him, some one or two he had been forced to remove, de-
spite previous comradeship. Even the king had turned on
him at last, but Guthwulf had been strong. To need was to
be weak. To be weak was not to be a man.

Now Guthwulf thought of the most precious thing he
had. It was not his lionor, for he knew he had given that
up when he did not raise a hand to help Elias combat his
growing madness; it was not his pride, for he had lost that
with his sight, when he became a staggering invalid who
had to wait for a servant to bring him a chamber pot.
Even his courage was no longer his to give or receive, for
it had fled when Elias made him touch the gray sword
and he had felt the blade's horrible, cold song run through
him like poison. No, the only thing left to him was the
most ephemeral of all, the tiny spark that still lived and
still hoped, buried though it was beneath such a weight of
despair. Perhaps that was a soul, that thing the priests
prattled about, and perhaps it wasn't—he no longer cared.
But he did know that he would give even that last, crucial
spark away if he could only have companionship once
more, if there could be some end to this hideous loneli-
ness.

The empty darkness suddenly filled with a great wind,
a wind that blew through him but did not rustle a hair on
his head. Guthwulf groaned weakly: he had felt this be-
fore. The void that surrounded him filled with cluttering
voices that brushed by him moaning and sighing words
that he could not understand, but that he felt were full of
loss and dread. He stretched out a hand, knowing as he

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238

did so that there was nothing to grasp ... but his hand

touched something.

With a gasp of shock, Guthwulf snatched the hand
back, A moment later, as the rush of wailing shades dwin-
dled down the endless corridor, something touched him
again, this time bumping against his outstretched leg. He
squeezed his eyelids shut, as though whatever was there
might horrify even the eyes of a blind man. There was an-
other insistent push at his leg. He slowly reached out once

more and felt ... fur.

The cat—for surely that was what it was: he could feel
its back arching beneath his hand, the sinuous tail sliding
between his fingers—thumped his knee with its small,
hard head. He let his fingers rest on it, not daring to move
for fear of frightening it away- Guthwulf held his breath,
half-certain that this would prove to be like other things
of this inconstant netherworld, that a moment's time
would find it vanished into air. But the cat seemed
pleased with its own substantiality; it put two paws up on
his thin leg, delicately sinking its claws into his skin as it

moved beneath his careful touch.

For a moment, as he scratched and patted, and as the
unseen animal wriggled with pleasure, he remembered
that he had eaten nothing but crawling things since he had
come to this place of damnation. The warm flesh moved
beneath his hand, a starving man's banquet of meat and
hot, salty blood separated from him only by a thin layer

of fur.

/(would be so easy, he thought, his fingers gently cir-
cling the cat's neck. Easy. Easy. Then, as his fingers tight-
ened just a little bit, the cat began to purr. The vibrations
moved up through its throat and into his fingers, a throb
of contentment and trust as piercingly beautiful as any
music of angelic choirs. For the second time in an hour,
Guthwulf burst into tears.

When the one-time Earl of Utanyeat awoke, he had no
idea how long he had been asleep, but for the first time in
many days he felt as though he had truly rested. His mo-
ment of peace ended quickly when he realized that the

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

239

warm body that had nestled in his lap was gone. He was
alone once more.

Just as the emptiness swept back down upon him, there
was a soft pressure against his leg, then a small cold nose
pressed against his hand.

"Back," he whispered. "You came back." He reached
down to touch the cat's head, but instead found he was
pressing something smaller, something warm and slickly
wet. The cat purred as he felt the thing that it had pushed
against his hip: it was a rat, recently killed.

Guthwulf sat up, saying a silent prayer of thanks, and
pulled the offering apart with trembling fingers- He re-
turned an equal portion to the founder of the feast.

*

Deep beneath the dark bulk of Stormspike Mountain,
the eyes of Utuk'ku Seyt-Hamakha suddenly opened. She
lay motionless in the onyx crypt that was her bed, staring
up into the perfect blackness of her stone chamber. She
had wandered far along her web, into places in the dream-
world that only the eldest of the immortals could go—and
in the shadows of the most distant improbabilities, she
had seen something she had not expected. A sharp sliver
of unease pierced her ancient heart. Somewhere at the
;   outermost edges of her designs, a strand had snapped.
.'   What that meant, she could not know, but an uncertainly
had been added, a flaw in the pattern she had woven so
long and so faultlessly.

The Nom Queen sat up, her long-fingered hand claw-
,   ing for her silver mask. She placed it on her face, so that
"  once more she appeared as serenely emotionless as the
moon, then she sent out a cold and fleeting thought. A
,' door opened in the blackness and dark shapes entered,
?. bringing with them a little light, for they, too, wore
;   masks, theirs of faintly glowing pale stone. They helped
,:-  their mistress to rise from her vault and brought her royal
t' robes of ice-white and silver, which they wrapped about
5s  her with the ritual care of burial priests swaddling the
t- dead. When she was dressed, they scuttled away, leaving

240 Tad Williams

Utuk'ku alone once more. She sat for a while in her light-
less chamber; if she breathed, she made no sound doing
so. Only the almost imperceptible creaking of the moun-
tain's roots sullied the pure silence.

After some time, the Nom Queen rose and made her
way out through the twisting corridors that her servants
had carved from the mountain's flesh in the deeps of the
past. She came at last to the Chamber of the Breathing
Harp and took her seat upon the great throne of black
rock. The Harp hovered in the mists that rose from the
vast well, its shifting dimensions glinting in the lights that
shone from the deeps below. The Lightless Ones were
chanting somewhere in the depths of Stormspike, their
hollow voices tracing the shapes of songs that had been
old and already forbidden back in the Lost Garden,
Venyha Do'Sae. Utuk'ku sat and stared at the Harp, let-
ting her mind trace its complexities as the steams of the
pit met the chamber's icy air and turned to frost upon her
eyelashes.

Ineluki was not there. He had gone, as he sometimes
did, into that place that was no place, where he alone
could go—a place as far beyond the dreamworld as
dreams were beyond waking, as far beyond death as death
was beyond living. For this time, the Nom Queen would
have to keep her own counsel.

Although her shining silver face was as impassive as
ever, Utuk'ku nevertheless felt a shadow of impatience as
she stared into the untenanted Well. Time was growing
short now. A lifetime for one of the scurrying mortals was
a scant season for the eldest, so the short span that
stretched between now and the hour of her triumph could
seem scarcely more than a few heartbeats if she chose to
perceive it so. But she did not choose that. Every moment
was precious. Every instant brought victory closer—but
for that victory to come to pass, there could be no mis-
takes.

The Queen of the Noms was troubled.

8

Nights of Fire

A

Simon's blood seemed almost to boil in his veins. He
looked around him, at the white-blanketed hills, at the
dark trees bending in the fierce, chilling winds, and
wondered how he could feel so full of fire. It was
excitement—the thrill of responsibility ... and of danger.
Simon felt very much alive.

He leaned his cheek against Homefinder's neck and
patted her firm shoulder. Her wind-cooled skin was damp
with sweat.

"She is tired," Hotvig said, cinching the strap on his
own mount's saddle. "She is net meant for such fast trav-
eling."

"She's fine," Simon shot back. "She's stronger than
you think."

"The Thrithings-folk know horses if they know any-
thing," Sludig said over his shoulder. He turned away
from the tree trunk, lacing his breeches. "Do not be so
proud, Simon."

Simon stared at the Rimmersman for a moment before
speaking. "It is not pride. I rode this horse a long way. I
will keep her."

Hotvig raised his hand placatingly. "I did not mean to
make you angry. It is just that you are thought of well by
Prince Josua. You are his knight. You could have one of
our fleet clan-horses for the asking."

Simon turned his stare on the braid-bearded grassland-
er, then tried to smile. "I know you meant it well, Hotvig,
and one of your horses would be a gift indeed. But this is

Tad Williams

different. I called this horse Homefinder, and that is
where she will go with me. Home."

"And where is that home, young thane?" asked one of
the other Thrithings-men.

"The Hayholt," Simon said firmly.

Hotvig laughed. "The place where Josua's brother
rules? You and your horse must be mighty travelers in-
deed, to ride into such fierce weather."

"That's as may be." Simon turned to look at the others,
squinting against the oblique afternoon light streaming
past the trees. "If you're all ready, it's time to go. If we
wait longer, the storm may die. We'll be under the light
of an almost full moon tonight. I'd rather have the snow
and the sentries all hunkered down over a fire."

Sludig started to say something, then thought better of
it. The Thrithings-men nodded in agreement and swung
easily into their saddles.

"Lead on, thane." Hotvig's laugh was short but not un-
friendly. The little company eased down out of the copse
and back into the bitter clutches of the wind.

Simon was almost as grateful for the simple chance to
do something as he was of this evidence of Josua's trust.
The days of increasingly bad weather, coupled with the
important duties granted to his companions but not to
him, had left Simon restless and ill-tempered. Binabik,
Geloe, and Strangyeard were in deep discussion over the
swords and the Storm King; Deomoth oversaw the arm-
ing and preparing of New Gadrinsett's ragtag army; even
Sangfugol, thankless as he found the task, had Towser to
watch. Before Prince Josua had called him to his tent, Si-
mon had begun to feel as he had in days he had hoped
long past—like a drummer boy hurrying along after the
Imperator's soldiers.

"Just a little spying work," Josua had called this task,
but to Simon it was almost as splendid as the moment he
had been knighted. He was to take some of Hotvig's
grasslanders and ride out for a look at the approaching
force-

"Don't do anything" the prince had said emphatically.

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER

243

"Just look. Count tents—and horses if you see them.
Look for banners and crests if there's enough light. But
don't be seen, and if you are, ride away. Quickly."

Simon had promised. A knight leading men to war: that
was what he had become. Impatient to be off on this glo-
rious quest, he had squirmed—unobtrusively, he
hoped—as he waited for Josua to finish with his instruc-
tions.

Sludig, surprisingly, had asked to come along. The
Rimmersman was still smarting over Simon's high hon-
ors, but Simon suspected that, like Simon himself, Sludig
was feeling a little left out, and would even prefer being
Simon's subordinate for a short time to the frustration of
waiting atop Sesuad'ra. Sludig was a warrior, not a gen-
eral: the Rimmersman was interested only when the fight-
ing became real, blade on blade.

Hotvig had also offered his services. Simon guessed
that Prince Josua, who had come to both like and trust the
Thrithings-man, might have asked Hotvig to go along and
keep an eye on his youngest knight. Surprisingly, this
possibility did not bother Simon. He had begun to under-
stand a little of the burden of power, and knew that Josua
was trying to do his best for aH concerned. So, Simon had
decided, let Hotvig be Josua's eye: he would give the
grasslander something good to report.

The storm was worsening. All the Stefflod river valley
was covered with snow, the river itself only a dark streak
running through a field of white. Simon pulled his cloak
tight and wrapped his woolen scarf more tightly around
his face.

The Thrithings-men, for all their confident bantering,
were more than a little frightened by the changes the
storm winds had brought to their familiar grasslands. Si-
mon saw their eyes widen as they looked around, the un-
easy way they spurred their horses through the deeper
drifts, the small reflexive signs to ward evil that they
made with crossed fingers. Only Sludig, child of the fro-
zen north, seemed unaffected by the bleak weather.

"This is truly a black winter," said Hotvig. "If I had

244

Tad Williams

not already believed Josua when he said there was an evil
spirit at work, I would believe him now."

"A black winter, yes—and summer only just ended."
Sludig flicked snow from his eyes. *The lands north of
the Frostmarch have not seen a spring for more than a
year. We fight against more than men."

Simon frowned. He did not know how superstitious the
clan men were, but he did not want to stir up any fears
that might interfere with their task- "It is a magical
storm," he said loudly enough to be heard over the cloak-
snapping wind, "but it's still only a storm. The snows
can't hurt you—but they might freeze off your tail."

One of the Thrithings-men turned to him with a grin. "If
tails freeze, then you will suffer most, young thane, riding
that bony horse." The other men chortled. Simon, pleased at
the way he had changed the conversation, laughed with
them.

Afternoon swiftly melted into evening as they rode, a
journey almost silent but for the soft chuffing of the
horses' hooves and the eternal moaning of the wind. The
sun, which had been overmatched by clouds all day, at
last gave up and dropped down below the low hills- A vi-
olet, shadowless light enveloped the valley. Soon it was
almost too dark for the little company to see where they
rode; the moon, enmeshed in clouds, was all but invisible.
There was no sign of stars.

"Should we stop and make camp?" Hotvig shouted
above the wind.

Simon considered for a moment. "1 don't think so," he
said at last. "We are not too far away—maybe another
hour's riding at most. I think we could risk a torch."

"Should we also blow some trumpets?" Sludig asked
loudly. "Or perhaps we could find some criers to run
ahead and announce that we are coming to spy out
Fengbald's position."

Simon scowled but did not rise to the bait. "We still
have the hills between us and Fengbald's camp at
Gadrinsett. If the people who fled his army are right
about where he is, we can easily put our light out before
we are within sight of his sentries." He raised his voice

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER

245

for emphasis. "Do you think it would be better to wait
until morning light, when Fengbald's men are rested and
there is sun to make us even easier to spot?"

Sludig waved his hand, conceding.

Hotvig produced a torch—a good, thick branch,
wrapped in strips of cloth and soaked in pitch—and
struck a spark with his flints. He shielded the flame from
the winds until it was burning well, then raised the brand
and rode a few paces ahead of the others, mounting the
slope of the riverbank as he headed for the greater shelter
of the hillside. "Follow, then," he called.

The procession resumed, moving a little more slowly
now. They passed across the uneven terrain of the hills.
letting the horses feel their way. Hotvig's torch became a
jogging ball of flame, the only thing throughout the
storm-darkened valley that could hold a wandering eye:

Simon almost felt he tracked a will-of-the-wisp across the
misty barrens. The world had become a long black tunnel,
an endless corridor spiraling down into the earth's light-
less heart.

"Anybody know a song?" Simon asked at last- His
voice sounded frail lifted against the mournful wind.

"A song?" Sludig wrinklecMiis brow in surprise.

"Why not? We are still far off from anyone- In any
case, you are an arm's length away and I can scarcely
hear you over this damnable wind. So, a song, yes!"

Hotvig and his Thrithings-men did not volunteer *o
sing, but they seemed to have no objection. Sludig made
a face, as if the very idea was foolish beyond belief.

"Up to me, then?" Simon smiled. "Up to me. Too bad
that Shem Horsegroom isn't here. He knows more songs
and stories than anyone." He wondered briefly what had
happened to Shem- Was he still living happily in the
Hayholt's great stables? "I'll sing you one of his. A song
about Jack Mundwode."

"Who?" asked one of the Thrithings-men.

"Jack Mundwode. A famous bandit. He lived in
Aldheorte Forest."

"If he lived at all," scoffed Sludig.

"If he lived at all," Simon agreed. "So I'll sing one of

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the songs about Mundwode." He wrapped his reins
around his hand once more, then leaned back in the sad-
dle, trying to remember the first verse.

"Bold Jack Mundwode,"

he began at last, timing the song to the thudding rhythm
of Homefinder's pace;

"Said: 'I'll go to Erchester,

I've heard that there's a maiden sweet

Who is a-living there.'

" 'Hruse her name is:

Hair of softly flowing gold,
Shoulders pale as winter snows,
Hruse young and fair.'

"Jack's bandits warned him,
Said: 'The town's no place for you.
Their lord has sworn to take your head,
He's a-waiting there.'

"Jack only laughed then.
Lord Constable he knew of old
Many times had Jack escaped him
By a slender hair.

"Jack put on rich dress,
Shining silks and promise-chain
Told Osgal: 'You're the servant
Who'll stand behind my chair.

" 'Duke of Flowers I'll be,'
Said Jack, '—a wealthy nobleman.
A man of grace and gifts and gold
Come to the county's fair.' "

Simon sang just loudly enough to let his voice cany
above the wind. It was a long tune, with many verses.

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

247

They followed Hotvig*s torch through the hills as Si-
mon continued the story of how Jack Mundwode entered
into Erchester in disguise and charmed Hruse's father, a
baron who thought he had found a wealthy suitor for his
daughter. Although Simon had to pause from time to time
to catch his breath, or to remember words—Shem had
taught him the song a very long time ago—his voice grew
more sure as the ride progressed. He sang about how Jack
the trickster paid court to the beautiful Hruse—sincerely,
since he had fallen in love at his first sight of her—and
sat beside the unknowing Lord Constable at the baron's
supper. Jack even convinced the greedy baron to take a
magical rose bush as Hruse's dowry, a bush whose deli-
cate blossoms each contained a shining gold Imperator,
and which, the supposed Duke of Flowers assured
Hruse's father and the constable, would bear fresh coins
every season as long as its roots were in the ground.

It was only as Simon neared the end of the song—he
had begun the verse that told how a drunken remark by
the bandit Osgal spoiled Jack's disguise and led to his
capture by the constable's men—that Hotvig reined up his
horse and waved his arm for silence.

"I think that we are very close." The Thrithings-man
pointed. The hillside sloped downward ahead, and even
through the swirling snows it was clear that open land lay
before them.

Sludig rode up beside Simon. The Rimmersman's
frosty breath hung in the air around his head. "Finish the
song on the way back, lad. It is a good tale."

Simon nodded.

Hotvig rolled over his saddle and down onto the
ground, then snuffed his torch in a drift of snow. He pat-
ted it dry on his saddle blanket before slipping it under
his belt and turning to Simon with an expectant look.

"Let's go, then," Simon said. "But carefully, since we
have no light."

They spurred their horses forward. Before they had
gone halfway down the long hill, Simon saw distant
lights, a sparse collection of gleaming dots.

"There!" he pointed, and immediately worried he had

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spoken too loudly. His heart was hammering. "Is that
Fengbald's camp?"

"It is what is left of Gadrinsett," said Sludig.
"Fengbald's camp will be near it."

In the valley before them, where the invisible Stefflod
met the equally unseeable Ymstrecca, only a scatter of
fires burned. But on the far side, camped near what Si-
mon felt sure was the Ymstrecca's northern bank, a
greater concentration of lights lay spread across the dark-
ened meadows, a myriad of fiery points arranged in rough

circles.

"You're right." Simon stared. "That will be the
Erkynguard there. Fengbald is probably in the middle of
those rings of tents. Wouldn't it be nice to put an arrow
through his blanket."

Hotvig rode a little nearer. "He is there, yes. And I
would like to kill him myself, just to pay him for the
things he said about the Stallion Clan when we last met.
But we have other things to do tonight."

Stung, Simon took a breath. "Of course," he said at
last. "Josua needs to know the strength of armies." He
paused to think. "Would it be useful to count the fires?
Then we should know how many troops he has brought."

Sludig frowned. "Unless we know how many men
share each fire, it will mean little."

Simon nodded, musing. "Yes. So we count the fires
now, then ride closer and find out if each tent has one, or
every dozen."

"Not too close," Sludig warned. "I like a fight as much
as any God-fearing man, but I like odds that are a little
better."

"You are very wise," Simon smiled. "You should take
Binabik on as your apprentice."

Sludig snorted.

After counting the tiny points of flame, they rode down

the hill.

"We are lucky," Hotvig said quietly. "I think the stone-
dweller sentries will be standing close to their campfires
tonight, staying out of the wind."

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER

249

Simon shivered, bending a little closer to Homefinder's
neck. "Not all stone-dwellers are that smart."

As they came down onto the snowy meadows, Simon
again felt his heart racing. Despite his fear, there was
something heady and exciting about being so close to the
enemy, about moving silently through the darkness
scarcely more than an arrow flight from armed men. He
felt very alive, as though the wind blew right through his
cloak and shirt, making his skin tingle. At the same time,
he was half-convinced that Fengbald's troops had already
spotted his little company—that even at this moment the
entire Erkynguard was crouching with bows drawn, eyes
glittering in the deep darkness between the shadowy tents.

They made a slow circuit around the outside of
Fengbald's camp, trying to move from the shelter of one
clump of trees to another, but trees were in unpleasantly
short supply on the edge of the grasslands. It was only
when they came close to the riverside and the western-
most end of the encampment that they felt themselves
safe for a while from staring eyes.

"If there are less than a thousand men at arms here,"
Sludig declared, "then I'm a Hyrka."

"There are Thrithings-men in that camp," Hotvig said.
"Men-of-no-clan from the Lake Thrithing, if I know any-
thing."

"How can you tell?" Simon asked- At this distance the
tents showed no markings or distinctive features—many
of them were little more than cloth shelters staked to the
ground and then roped to bushes or standing stones—and
none of the inhabitants of the camp's perimeter were out
in such fierce weather.

"Listen." Hotvig cupped his hand behind his ear. His
scarred face was solemn.

Simon held his breath and listened. The windsong cov-
ered everything, drowning even the sound of the men
riding beside him. "Listen to what?"

"Listen with more care," said Hotvig. "It is the har-
nesses." Beside him, one of his clansmen nodded his head
solemnly,

Simon strained to hear what the grasslander did. He

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thought he could make out a faint clinking. 'That?" he

asked.

Hotvig smiled, showing the gap in his teeth. He knew
it was an impressive feat. "Those horses are wearing
Lakeland harnesses—I am sure of it."

"You can tell what kind of harnesses they wear by the
sound?" Simon was astonished. Did these meadow-men
have ears like rabbits?

"Our bridles are different as the feathers of birds," one
of the other Thrithings-men said. "Lakeland and Meadow
and High Thrithings harness are all different to our ears
as your voice is from the northerner's, young mane."

"How else could we know our own horses at night,
from a distance?" Hotvig frowned. "By the Four-Footed,
how do you stone-dwellers stop your neighbors stealing
from you?"

Simon shook his head- "So we know where Fengbald's
mercenaries are from. But can you tell how many of the
men down there are Thrithings-folk?"

"By their shelters, I guess that more than half these
troops are from the unclanned," Hotvig replied-

Simon's expression turned grim. "And good fighters,
I'd wager."

Hotvig nodded. There was more than a trace of pride in
the set of his jaw. "All the grasslanders can fight. But the
ones without clans are the most ..." he searched for a
word, "... the most fierce."

"And the Erkynguard are no sweeter." Sludig's voice
was sour, but his eyes held a faintly predatory spark. "It
will be a strong and bloody battle when iron and iron
meet."

'Time to go back." Simon looked out to the stripe of
dark emptiness that was the Ymstrecca. "We've been
lucky so far."

The little company crossed back over the exposed
spaces. Simon again felt their vulnerability, the closeness
of a thousand enemies, and thanked the heavens that
the stormy weather had enabled them to come close to the
camp without having to leave their horses behind. The
idea of having to flee on foot if they were discovered by

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

mounted sentries—and flee through wind and snow at
that—was a disheartening one.

They reached the shelter of a copse of wind-stripped el-
ders that stood forlornly on the slope of the lowest-lying
foothills. As Simon turned to stare back at the sprinkling
of lights that marked the edge of Fengbald's placid camp,
the anger that had been hidden by his excitement sud-
denly began to well inside him—a cold fury at the
thought of all those soldiers lying securely in their tents,
like caterpillars that had gorged on the leaves of a beau-
tiful garden and now lay safely wrapped in their cocoons.
These were the despoilers, the Erkynguardsmen who had
come to arrest Morgenes, who had tried to throw down
Josua's castle at Naglimund. Under Fengbald, they had
crushed the whole town of Falshire as thoughtlessly as a
child might kick over an anthill. Most importantly to Si-
mon, they had driven him from his home, and now they
would try to drive him from Sesuad'ra as well.

"Which of you has a bow?" he said abruptly.

One of the Thrithings-men looked up in surprise. "I
do."

"Give it to me. Yes, and an arrow, too." Simon took the
bow and hooked it over his saddle hom, still staring out
at the dark shapes of the clustered tents. "Now give me
that torch, Hotvig."

The Thrithings-man stared at him for a moment, then
pulled the unlit brand from his belt and handed it to him.
"What will you do?" he asked quietly. His expression be-
trayed nothing but calm interest.

Simon did not reply. Instead, with his concentration on
other matters freeing him for a moment from self-
consciousness, he swung down from the saddle with sur-
prising ease. He unpeeled the pitchy rag from the end of
the torch and wrapped it instead around the head of the
arrow, tying it tightly with the length of leather thong that
had bound his Qanuc sheath against his thigh. Kneeling,
sheltered from the wind by Homefinder's bulk, he pro-
duced his flints and iron bar.

"Come, Simon." Sludig sounded midway between

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Tad Williams

worry and anger. "We have done what we came for. What
are you up to?"

Simon ignored him, striking at the iron until a spark
nestled in the sticky folds of the rag wound around the ar-
row's tip. He blew on it until the flame caught, then pock-
eted his flints and swung back up into the saddle. "Wait
for me," he said, and spurred Homefinder out of the stand
of trees and down the slope. Sludig started after him, but
Hotvig reached out a hand and caught the harness of the
Rimmersman's mount, pulling him up short. They fell
into an animated, but whispered, argument.

Simon had found little chance to practice with a bow,
and none at all to shoot one from horseback since the ter-
rible, swift battle outside of Haethstad when Ethelbeam
had been killed. Still, it was not accuracy or skill that was
important now so much as his desire to do something, to
send a small message to Fengbald and his confident
troops. He nocked the arrow while still holding the reins,
clinging with his knees to the saddle as Homefinder
jounced across the uneven snow. The flame blew back
along the arrow's shaft until he could feel it hot on his
knuckles. At last, as he swept down onto the valley floor,
he pulled up. He used his legs to turn Homefinder slowly
in a wide circle, then pulled the bowstring back to his ear.
His lips moved, but Simon himself did not know what he
was saying, so all-absorbing was the ball of flame quiv-
ering at the end of the shaft. He took a breath, then let the
arrow go.

It flew out, bright and swift as a shooting star, and
arched across the night sky like a finger dipped in blood
being drawn across black cloth. Simon felt his heart leap
as he watched its erratic flight, watched the wind that
nearly extinguished the flame carry it first to this side,
then that, then drop it at last in among the crowded shad-
ows of the camp. A few moments later a bright blossom
of light arose as one of the tents caught fire. Simon
watched for a moment, his heart beating as swiftly as a
bird's, then turned and spurred Homefinder back up the
hill.

He did not say anything about the arrow when he

TO   GREEN   ANGEL  TOWER

253

caught up with the rest of his companions. Even Sludig
did not question him. Instead, the little company fell in
around Simon and together they rode swiftly through the
darkened hills with the wind blowing chill against their
faces.

A

"I wish you would go and lie down,'* Josua said.

Vorzheva looked up. She was sitting on a mat beside
the brazier with the cloak she was repairing spread out on
her lap. The young New Gadrinsett girl who was helping
her also looked up, then quickly lowered her eyes to the
mending once more.

"Lie down?" Vorzheva said, cocking her head quizzi-
cally. "Why?"

Josua resumed his pacing. "It ... it would be better."

Vorzheva ran a hand through her black hair as she
watched him cross from one wall of the tent to the other
then start back again, a journey of little more than ten cu-
bits. The prince was tall enough that he could only stand
upright at the very center of the tent, which gave his pac-
ing progress an odd, hunchbacked look.

"I do not want to lie down, Josua," she said at last, still
watching him. "What is wrong with you?"

He stopped and flexed his fingers. "It would be better
for the baby ... and for you ... if you did lie down."

Vorzheva stared at him for a moment, then laughed.
"Josua, you are being foolish—the child will not come
until the end of winter."

"I worry for you. Lady," he said plaintively. "The bitter
weather, the hard life we live here."

His wife laughed again, but this time there was a slight
edge in her voice. 'The women of the Stallion Clan, we
give birth standing up on the grasslands, then we go back
to work. We are not city women. What is wrong with you,
Josua?"

The prince's thin face flushed violently. "Why must
you always disagree with me?" he demanded. "Am I not

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Tad Williams

your husband? I fear for your health and I do not like to
see you working so strenuously, late into the night."

"I am no child," Vorzheva snapped, "I only am carry-
ing one. Why do you walk here and back, here and back?
Stand and talk to me!"

"I try to talk with you, but you quarrel with me!"

"Because you tell me what things I should do, like you
tell a child. I am not a fool, even though I do not speak
like your castle ladies!"

"Aedon curse it, I never said you were a fool!" he
shouted. The moment the words were out of his mouth,
he stopped his agitated walking. After staring at the
ground for a moment, he raised his eyes to Vorzheva's
young helper. The girl was huddled in mortification,
doing her best to vanish into the shadows. "You," he said.
"Would you leave us for a while? My wife and I would       y
like to be alone."

"She is helping me!" Vorzheva said angrily.

Josua fixed the girl with his hard gray eyes. "Go."         ;

The young woman leaped to her feet and fled out     -;

through the tent flap, leaving her mending in a heap on      ^
the floormats. The prince stared after her for a moment,      H
then turned his attention back to Vorzheva. He seemed      ^
about to say something, then stopped and swiveled      f
around to the tent flap.                                    ;^

"Blessed Elysia," he murmured. It was hard to tell      ^
whether it was a prayer or a curse. He walked toward the      H
doorway and out of the tent.                               X

"Where do you go?" Vorzheva called after him.            ^

Josua squinted into the darkness- At last he saw a
lighter shape against one of the tents not far away. He
walked toward it, clenching and unclenching his fist-

"Wait." He reached out to touch the young woman's
shoulder. Her eyes widened. She had backed herself
against the tent; now she raised her hands before her as if
to ward off a blow. "Forgive me," he said. "That was an
ungentle thing for me to do. You have been kind to my
lady and she likes you. Please forgive me."

"For-forgive you. Lord?" she sniffled. "Me? I am no

one."

TO  GREEN   ANGEL TOWER

255

Josua winced. "God values each soul at the same mea-
sure. Now please, go to Father Strangyeard's tent over
there. There, you can see the light of his fire. It will be
warm, and I'm sure he will give you something to eat and
drink. I will come to fetch you when I have finished talk-
ing to my wife." A sad, tired smile crept onto his lean
face. "Sometimes a man and woman must have some
time alone, even when they are the prince and his lady."

She sniffled again, then tried to curtsy, but was pressed
back so firmly against the fabric of the tent that she could
not bend. "Yes, Prince Josua."

"Go on, then." Josua watched her hurry across the
snowy ground toward the circle of Strangyeard's fire. He
saw the archivist and someone else stand to greet her,
then he turned and walked back to the tent.

Vorzheva stared at him as he entered, curiosity clearly
mixed with anger on her face. He told her what he had
done.

"You are the strangest man I have ever known." She
took a deep, shaky breath, then looked down, squinting at
her needlework.

"If the strong can bully the weak without shame, then
how are we different from the beasts of forest and field?"

"Different?" She still avoided his eyes. "How is it dif-
ferent? Your brother chases us with soldiers. People die,
women die, children die, all for grazing land and names
and flags. We are beasts, Josua. Have you not seen that?"
She looked up at him again, more kindly this time, as a
mother at a child who has not learned life's harsh lessons.
She shook her head and returned to her task.

The prince moved to the pallet, then sat down among
the piles of cushions and blankets. "Come sit with me."
He patted the bed beside him.

"It is warmer here, close to the fire." Vorzheva seemed
engrossed in her stitchery.

"It would be just as warm if we sat together here."

Vorzheva sighed, then put down her sewing, stood, and
walked to the bed. She fell down beside him and leaned
back upon the cushions. Together they stared up at the
roof of the tent, which sagged beneath its burden of snow.

256 Tad Williams

"I am sorry," Josua said. "I did not mean to be harsh.
But I worry- I fear for your health, and for the child's
health."

"Why is it that men think they are brave and women
are weak? Women see more blood and pain than men ever
do, unless men are fighting—and that is foolish blood."
Vorzheva grimaced. "Women tend the hurts that cannot
be helped."

Josua did not reply. Instead, he slid his arm around her
shoulder and let his fingers move in the dark curls of her
hair.

"You have no need to fear for me," she said. "Clan
women are not weak. I will not cry. I will make our child
and it will be strong and fit."

Josua maintained his silence for a while, then took a
deep breath. "I blame myself. I did not give you a chance
to understand what you were doing."

She turned suddenly to look at him, her face twisting in
fear. She reached up and plucked his hand from her hair,
then held it tightly. "What are you saying?" she de-
manded. 'Tell me."

He hesitated, looking for words. "It is a different thing
being a prince's wife than it is being a prince's woman."

She swiftly moved a little way across the bed so she
could turn and face him. "What are you saying? That you
would bring some other woman to take my place? I will
kill you and her, Josua! I swear on my clan!"

He laughed softly, although at that moment she looked
quite capable of carrying out her threat. "No, that is not
what I mean. Not at all." He looked at her and his smile
faded. "Please, my lady, never think anything like that."
He reached out and clasped her hand again. "I meant only
that as prince's wife, you are not like other women—and
our child is not like other children."

"So?" The fear still lingered. She was not yet appeased.

"I cannot let anything happen to you, or to our child. If
I am lost, the life you bear within you might be the only
remaining link to the world as it was."

"What does that mean?"

"It means that our child must live. If we fail—if

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

257

Fengbald defeats us, or even if we survive this battle, but
I die—then one day our child must avenge us." He rubbed
his face. "No, that is not what I mean. This is more im-
portant than vengeance. Our child could be the last light
against an age of darkness. We do not know if Miriamele
will come back to us, or if she even lives. If she is lost,
then a prince's son—or a prince's daughter, for that
matter—a grandchild of Prester John, would raise the
only banner that could bring together a resistance to Elias
and his ungodly ally."

Vorzheva was relieved. "I told you, we Thrithings-
women bear strong children. You need have no worry—
our child will live to make you proud. And we will win
here, Josua. You are stronger than you know." She moved
closer 10 him. "There is too much worry in you."

He sighed. "I pray that you are right. Usires and His
mercy, is there anything worse than being a ruler? How I
wish I could simply walk away."

"You would not do that. My husband is no coward."
She lifted herself to look at him closely, as if he might be
an impostor, then settled back once more.

"No, you are right. It is my lot—my test, perhaps ...
my own Tree. And each nail is sharp and cold indeed. But
even the condemned man is allowed to dream of free-
dom."

"Do not talk of this any more," she said into his shoul-
der. "You will bring bad luck."

"I can stop speaking, my love, but I cannot so easily
silence my thoughts."

She pushed her head against him like a young bird try-
ing to force its way out of an egg. "Be quiet now."

A

The worst of the storm had passed, moving southeast.
The moon, although curtained and invisible, still shed
enough light to give a faint shine to the snow, as though
all the river valley between Gadrinsett and Sesuad'ra
were sprinkled with powdered diamonds.

Simon watched the snow fountain up from the hooves

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Tad Williams

of Sludig's horse and wondered if he would live to look
back on this year. What might he be, if by some odd
chance he managed to survive? A knight, of course,
which was already something so grand he had only imag-
ined it in his most childish daydreams—but what did a
knight do? Fought for his liege in war, of course, but Si-
mon did not want to think about wars. If there were peace
someday, and if he lived to see it—two possibilities that
seemed sadly remote—what sort of life would he have?

What did knights do? Ruled over their fiefdoms, if they
had land. That was more or less like being a farmer,
wasn't it? It certainly didn't seem grand, but suddenly the
idea of coming home from a wet day spent walking
through the fields seemed very appealing. He would pull
off his cloak and boots and wiggle into his slippers, then
warm himself in front of a great roaring fire- Someone
would bring him wine, and mull it with a hot poker ...
but who? A woman? A wife? He tried to conjure a suit-
able face out of the darkness, but could not. Even
Miriamele, if she lost her legacy and consented to marry
a commoner, and if she would choose Simon in any
case—if the rivers ran uphill and fish flew, in other
words—Miriamele would not be, he sensed, the kind of
woman who would wait quietly at home for her husband
to return from the fields. To imagine her thus was. almost
to think of a beautiful bird with its wings tied.

But if he did not marry and have a household, what
then? The thought of tournaments, that staple of the
knight's spring and summer entertainment which had oc-
cupied his excited thoughts for several years, nearly sick-
ened him now. That healthy men would hurt each other
for no reason, lose eyes and limbs and even their lives for
a game when the world was already such a dreadful and
dangerous place, made Simon furious. "Mock-war" some
called it. as though any mere sport, no matter how haz-
ardous, could approach the horror of the things Simon
had seen. War was like a great wind or an earth tremor,
something dreadful that should not be trifled with. To im-
itate it seemed almost blasphemous. Practicing at tilting
and swordwork was something you did to stay alive if

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER                           259

war caught you. When this all ended—if it ended—Simon
wanted to get as far away from war, mock or otherwise,
as he could.

But one did not always go looking for war, for pain and
terror; certainly death did not need to be sought out. So
shouldn't a knight always be ready to do his duty defend-
ing himself and others? That was what Sir Deornoth said,
and Deomoth did not strike Simon as the kind who fought
needlessly or happily. And what was it that Doctor Mor-
genes had said once about the great Camaris? That he
blew his famous battle hom Cellian not to summon help
or make himself glorious, but to let his enemies know he
was coming so they could safely escape. Morgenes had
written time after time in his book that Camaris took no
pleasure in battle, that his mighty skills were only a bur-
den, since they drew attackers to him and forced him to
kill when he did not want to. There was a paradox. No
matter how adept you were, someone would always wish
to test you. So was it better to prepare for war or to avoid
it?

A clump of snow fell from a branch overhead and, as
if it had life, avoided his heavy scarf and slid easily down
the back of his neck. Simon gave a muffled squeak of dis-
may, then quickly looked around, hoping none of the oth-
ers had heard him make such an unmanly noise. No one
was looking at him; the attention of all his companions
seemed fixed on the silver-gray hills and spiky, shadowy
trees.

So which was better? To flee war, or to try to make
yourself so strong that no one could hurt you? Morgenes
had told him that such problems were the stuff of king-
ship, the sort of questions that kept goodhearted mon-
archs awake at night when all their subjects were
sleeping. When Simon had complained about such a
vague response, the doctor had smiled sadly.

- "That answer is certainly unsatisfactory, Simon," the
old man had said. "So are all possible answers to such
questions. If there were correct answers, the world would
be as orderly as a cathedral—flat stone on flat stone,
pure angle mating with pure angle—and everything as

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Tad Williams

solid and unmoving as the walls of Saint Sutrin's." He
had cocked his beer jug in a sort of salute. "But would
there be love in such a world, Simon? Beauty or charm,
with no ill-favor to compare them to? What kind of place
would a world without surprises be?" The old man had
taken a long drink, wiped his mouth, then changed the
subject. Simon had not thought any more of what the doc-
tor had said again—until this moment.

"Sludig." Simon's voice was startlingly loud as it broke
the long silence.

"What?" Sludig turned in his saddle to look back.

"Would you rather live in a world without surprises? I
mean without good ones and bad ones both?"

The Rimmersman glared at him for a moment. "Don't
talk foolishness," he grunted, then turned back, using his
knees to urge his horse around a boulder standing stark
against the white drifts.

Simon shrugged. Hotvig, who had also looked back,
stared intently for a moment, then swiveled around once

more.

The thought would not quite go away, however. As
Homefinder plodded along beneath him, Simon remem-
bered a bit of a recent dream—a field of grass whose
color was so even that it might have been painted, a sky
as cold and unchanging as a piece of pottery, the whole
landscape eternal and dead as stone.

I'll take surprises, I think, Simon decided. Even with
the bad ones included.

They heard the music first, a thin, piping melody that
wove in and out through the noise of the wind. As they
came down the hillside into the bowl-shaped valley
around Sesuad'ra, they saw a small fire burning at the
edge of the great black tarn that surrounded the hill. A lit-
tle round shape rose from beside the fire, draped in
shadow, silhouetted by flame as it lowered a bone flute.

"We heard you playing," Simon said. "Aren't you wor-
ried that someone else might hear you, too? Someone un-
friendly?"

"I have protection of sufficiency." Binabik smiled just

26l

TO  GREEN  ANGEL  TOWER

a little. "So, you are returned." He sounded studiedly
calm, as if worrying was absolutely the last thing he
might have been doing. "Are you all well?"

"Yes, Binabik, we're well. All Fengbald's sentries were
staying close to their fires."

"As I have myself been doing," the troll said. "The
flatboats are over there, where I am pointing. Would you
like to rest and warm yourselves, or should we be going
up the hill now?"

"We should probably get the news to Josua as soon as
possible," Simon decided. "Fengbald has something near
a thousand men, and Hotvig says that almost half of them
are Thrithings mercenaries." He was distracted by a shape
moving along the shadowy shore. When it passed before
a high snow drift, he saw that it was Qantaqa slipping
along the water's edge like a driblet of quicksilver. The
wolf turned to look toward him, her eyes reflecting the
firelight, and Simon nodded. Yes, Binabik was indeed
protected; no one would sneak up on Qantaqa's master
without first dealing with her.

"That is not truly good news, but I am thinking it could
be less good," Binabik said as he gathered together the
pieces of his walking-stick. "The High King could have
thrown all his forces upon us, as he was doing at
Naglimund." He sighed. "Still, a thousand soldiers is not
a comforting thought." The troll pushed the assembled
stick through his belt and took Homefinder's reins.
"Josua is gone to sleep for the night, but I think you are
sensible when you say you will go straight up. Better we
all go to the safeness of the Stone. Even if the king's ar-
mies are still distant, this is a wild place, and I am think-
ing that the storm may bring strange things out into the
night."

Simon shivered. "Then let's get ourselves out of the
night and into a warm tent."

They followed Binabik's short steps down to the edge
of the lake. It seemed to have an odd sheen.

"Why does the water look so strange?" Simon asked.

Binabik grimaced. "That is my news, it gives me sor-
row to say. I fear that this last storm has brought us more

262

Tad Williams

evil luck than we had guessed. Our moat, as you castle-
dwellers would call it, is becoming frozen."

Sludig, who was standing close by, cursed richly. "But
the lake is our best guard against the king's troops!"

The little man shrugged. "It is not all frozen yet—
otherwise there would be terrible difficulties to get our
boats back across. Perhaps we will be having a thaw. and
then it will be a shield to us again." The look on his face,
shared by Sludig, suggested that it was not very likely,

Two large flatboats waited at the lake's edge. "Men and
wolves are to go in this one," Binabik said, gesturing.
"The other will take the horses and one man for watching
them. Although, Simon, I am thinking your horse has
been with Qantaqa enough to bear the trip in our boat."

"It's me you should worry about, troll," growled
Sludig. "I like boats less than I like wolves—and I don't
like wolves much more than the horses do."

Binabik waved a small, dismissive hand. "You are
making jokes, Sludig. Qantaqa has risked her life at your
side many times, and that you are knowing."

"So now I have to risk my own again on another of
your damned boats," the Rimmersman complained- He
seemed to be suppressing a smile. Simon was surprised
again by the strange fellowship that seemed to have
grown between Binabik and the northerner. "Very well,
then," Sludig said, "I will go. But if you trip over that
great beast and fall in, I am the last person who will jump
in after you."

"Trolls," Binabik said with great dignity, "do not 'fall
in.' "

The little man plucked a burning brand from the
flames, extinguished the campfire with a few handfuls of
snow, then clambered onto the nearest flatboat. "Your
torches have too much brightness," he said. "Put them
out. Let us be enjoying this night, when some stars can at
last be seen." He lit the horn-shielded lamp hanging at the
front of the barge, then stepped gingerly from one rocking
deck to the other and fired the wick on the other boat as
well. The lamplight, lunar and serene, spread out across
the water as Binabik dropped his torch overboard. It dis-

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER                           263

appeared with a hiss and a belch of steam, Simon and the
others doused their own brands and followed the troll
aboard.

One of Hotvig's clansmen was deputed to ferry the
horses in the second barge, but the mare Homefmder, as
Binabik had predicted, seemed unruffled by Qantaqa's
presence and so was deemed fit to ride with the rest of the
company. She stood in the stem of the leading boat and
gazed back at the other horses like a duchess eyeing a
gang of drunkards carousing beneath her balcony.
Qantaqa curled up at Binabik's feet, tongue lolling, and
watched Sludig and Hotvig as they poled the first barge
out onto the lake. Mist rose up all around; in a moment
the land behind them had vanished and the two boats
were floating through a netherworld of fog and black wa-
ter.

In most places the ice was little more than a thin skin
across the water, brittle as sugar candy. As the front of the
boat pushed through, the ice crackled and rang, a delicate
but unnerving sound that made the back of Simon's neck
prickle. Overhead, the passage of this wave of the storm
had left the sky almost clear; as Binabik had said, a few
stars could indeed be seen blinking in the murk.

"Look," the troll said softly. "While men prepare for
fighting, Sedda still goes about her business. She has not
caught her husband Kikkasut yet, but she does not stop
her trying."

Simon stood beside him and stared up into the deep
well of the sky. But for the soft tinkling of the water's
frozen crust parting before them, and an occasional muf-
fled thump when they struck a larger piece of floating ice,
the valley was supematurally silent.

"What's that?" Sludig said abruptly. "There."

Simon leaned to follow his gaze. The Rimmersman's
fur-cloaked arm pointed out across the water to the dark
edge of the Aldheorte, which stood like a castle outwall
above the north shore of the lake.

"I can't see anything," Simon whispered.

"It's gone now," Sludig said fiercely, as though Simon

264

Tad Williams

had spoken from disbelief instead of inability. "There
were lights in the forest. I saw them."

Binabik stepped closer to the edge of the boat, peering
out into the darkness. "That is near where the city Enki-
e-Shao'saye stands, or what is remaining of it."

Hotvig now moved forward as well. The barge rocked
gently. Simon thought it good that Homefinder still stood
placidly in the stem, otherwise the shallow flatboat might
have overbalanced. "In the ghost city?" The Thrithings-
man's scarred features were suddenly childlike in their
apprehension. "You see lights there?"

"I did," Sludig said. "I swear by the Blood of Aedon I
did. But they are gone now."

"Hmm." Binabik looked troubled. "It could be that
somehow our own lamps were shining back from some
mirroring surface there in the old city."

"No." Sludig was firm. "One was bigger than any lamp
of ours. But they went dark so quickly!"

"Witch lights," said Hotvig grimly.

"It is also possible," Binabik offered, "that you only
saw them for a moment through trees or broken buildings,
then after that we passed from where we could be seeing
them." He thought for a moment, then turned to Simon.
"Josua has set tonight's task for you, Simon. Should we
back water for a way to see if we can be finding these for-
est lights again?"

Simon tried to think calmly of what was best, but he
truly did not want to know what was on the far side of the
black water. Not tonight.

"No." He tried to make his voice measured and steady.
"No, we will not go and look. Not when we have news
that Josua needs. What if it is a scouting party for
Fengbald? The less they see of us, the better." Stated that
way, it sounded rather reasonable. He felt a moment of re-
lief, but that was quickly followed by shame that he
should try to falsely impress these men, who had risked
their lives under his command. "And also," he said "I am
tired and worried—no, frightened is what I am. This has
been a hard night. Let's go and tell Josua what we've
seen, including the lights in the forest. The prince should

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER

265

decide." As he finished, he was suddenly aware of a vast
presence at his shoulder. He turned quickly, unnerved, to
be confronted with the great bulk of Sesuad'ra looming
up from the water beside him; it had appeared so unex-
pectedly through the fog that it might have just that mo-
ment pushed up from beneath the lake's obsidian surface
like a breaching whalefish. He stood and stared up at it,
open mouthed.

Binabik stroked Qantaqa's broad head. "I am thinking
Simon speaks with good sense. Prince Josua should be
deciding what to do about this mystery."

"They were there," Sludig said angrily, but shook his
head as though not as sure now as he had been.

The flatboats sailed on. The forested shore vanished
once more into the cloaking mist, like a dream receding
before the light and noises of morning.

A

Deornoth watched Simon as the youth made his report,
and found that he liked what he was seeing. The young
man was flushed with the excitement of his new respon-
sibilities, and the gray morning light was reflected in
eyes that were perhaps a little too bright for the gravity
of the things discussed—namely, Fengbald's army and its
overwhelming superiority in numbers, equipment, and
experience—but Deomoth noted with pleasure that the
youth did not rush through his explanations, did not jump
toward unwarranted conclusions, and thought carefully
before answering each of Prince Josua's questions. This
new-minted knight had seen and heard much in his short
life, it seemed, and had paid attention. As Simon related
their adventure and Sludig and Hotvig nodded agreement
with the young man's conclusions, Deomoth found him-
self nodding, too. Though Simon's beard still had the
chick-feathered look of youth, Deomoth's experienced
eye saw beneath it the makings of a fine man. He guessed
that the lad might someday be one such as other men
might follow to their benefit.

Josua was holding his council before his tent, where a

266 Tad Williams

blazing fire kept the morning chill at bay and served as a
centerpiece to their deliberations. As the prince ques-
tioned and probed, Freosel, New Gadrinsett's stocky con-
stable, cleared his throat to gain Josua's attention.

"Yes, Freosel?"

"Strikes me, sire, that all things your knight here says
he saw, well, they be like what the Lord Mayor told us-"

Simon turned to the Falshireman. "Lord Mayor? Who's
that?"

"Helfgrim, who was once mayor of Gadrinsett," Josua
explained. "He came to us just after you and the others
rode out. He escaped from FengbakTs camp and made his
way here. He is sickly and I have ordered him to bed, oth-
erwise he would be with us this moment. He had a long,
cold journey on foot, and Fengbald's men had treated him
badly."

"As I said, your Highness," Freosel resumed, polite but
determined, "what Sir Seoman here says bears out all
Helfgrim's talk. So when Helfgrim says he knows how
Fengbald will attack, and where, and when . . ." the
young man shrugged, "well, seems we should pay heed.
Would be a boon to us, and we have small enough to
work with."

"Your point is well taken, Freosel. You said the mayor
is a trustworthy man, and you, as another Falshireman,
know him best." Josua looked around the circle. "What
think you all? Geloe?"

The witch woman looked up quickly, surprised. She
had been staring into the shifting orange depths of the
fire. "I do not pretend to be a war strategist, Josua."

"That I know, but you are a keen judge of people. How
much weight can we place on the old Lord Mayor's
words? We have few enough forces—we cannot spare
anything on a bad gamble."

Geloe thought for a moment. "I have only spoken with
him briefly, Josua, but I will say this: there is a darkness
in his eyes I do not like—a shadow. I suggest you take
great care."

"A shadow?" Josua looked at her intently. "Could it be

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER                           267

a mark of his suffering, or are you saying you read
treachery in him?"

The forest woman shook her head. "No, I would not go
so far as to say anything about treachery. It could be pain,
certainly. Or he could be addled by harsh treatment, and
the thing I see is a mind hiding from itself, hiding behind
imaginings of knowing what the great ones are thinking
and doing. But go carefully, Josua."

Deomoth sat up straighter. "Geloe is wise, sire," he
said quickly, "—but we shouldn't make the error of a
caution so great we fail to use what could save us."

Even as he spoke, Deornoth wondered whether he was
so concerned that the witch woman might talk his master
into passivity that he was ignoring the possible truth of
what she said. Still, it was important in these final days to
keep Josua resolved. If the prince was bold and decisive,
it would overcome many small mistakes—that, in
Deornoth's experience, was the way of war. If Josua wa-
vered and hesitated too long, over this matter or any oth-
ers, it might steal away what little fighting spirit remained
to New Gadrinsett's army of survivors.

"I say we pay close attention to what Helfgrim the
mayor has to offer," he asserted.

Hotvig spoke up in Deornoth's support, and Freosel
was clearly already in agreement. The others held their
peace, although Deomoth could not help noticing that
Binabik the troll had an uneasy look on his round face as
he poked at the fire with a length of stick. The little man
put too much stock in Geloe and her magical trappings,
Deornoth thought. This was different, though. This was
war.

"I think I will have a talk with the Lord Mayor to-
night," Josua said at last. "Providing he is strong enough,
that is. As you say, Deornoth, we cannot afford to be too
proud to accept help. We are needy, and God, it is said,
provides what His children need if they trust Him. But I
will not forget your words, Geloe. That would also be
throwing away valuable gifts."

"Your pardon. Prince Josua," Freosel said. "If you be
done with this, there are other things I need speak on."

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Tad Williams

"Of course."

"We have more problems than just readying to fight,"
the Falshireman said. "You know food is dreadful scarce.
We fished the rivers until they be nearly empty—but now
ice has come, we cannot even do that. Every day hunters
go farther and come back with less. This woman," he
nodded toward Geloe, "helped us find plants and fruits
we did not know were good to eat, but that only helps
stretch stores gone mighty thin." He stopped and swal-
lowed, anxious about speaking so forwardly, but deter-
mined to say what was needed. "Even do we win here
and beat off siege ..." at the word, Deornoth felt an al-
most imperceptible shudder travel around the circle,
"... we'll not be able to stay. Not enough food to last us
through winter, that is the length of it."

The baldness of his statement dropped the makeshift

council into silence.

"What you say is not truly a surprise," Josua said at
last. "Believe me, I know the hunger our people are feel-
ing. I hope the settlers of New Gadrinsett are aware that
you and I and these others are not eating any better than

they are."

Freosel nodded. "They know, your Highness, and that's
stopped any worse trouble than grumbling and complain-
ing. But if people starve, they won't care that you be
starving, too. They'll go. Some be gone already."

"Goodness!" said Strangyeard. "But where can they
go? Oh, the poor creatures!"

"Don't matter." Freosel shook his head. "Back to tag
along the edges of Fengbald's army begging for scraps, or
back across plains toward Erkynland, Only a few be gone.

So far."

"If we win," Josua said, "we will move on. That was
my plan, and this only proves to me that I was right. If
the wind swings in our favor, we would be fools not to
move while it blows at our backs." He shook his head.
"Always more troubles. Fear and pain, death and
hunger—how much my brother has to answer for!"

"It's not just him. Prince Josua," Simon said, his face
tight with anger. "The king didn't make this storm."

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER                           269

"No, Simon, you are correct. We cannot afford to for-
get my brother's allies." Josua seemed to think of some-
thing, for he turned toward the young knight. "And now
I am reminded. You spoke of seeing lights on the north-
east shore last night."

Simon nodded. "Sludig saw them—but we are certain
they were there," he hastened to add, then darted a look
over at the Rimmersman, who was listening attentively.
"I thought it best we tell you before doing anything."

"This is another puzzle. It could be some feint of
Fengbald's, I suppose—some attempt to outflank us. But
it makes little sense."

"Especially with his main army still so far away,"
Deomoth said. It did not seem like Fengbald's method,
anyway, he thought. The duke of Falshire had never been
the subtle sort.

"It seems to me, Simon, that it could be your friends
the Sithi coming to Join us. That would be a happy
chance." Josua cocked an eyebrow. "I believe you had
some conversation recently with your Prince Jiriki?"

Deomoth was amused to see the young man's cheeks
turn bright scarlet. "I ... I did, your Highness," Simon
mumbled. "I shouldn't have done it."

"That is not to the point," Josua said dryly. "Your
crimes, such as they were, are not for this gathering.
Rather, I wish to know if you think it might be them."

"The fairy-folk?" blurted out Freosel. 'This lad talks to
the fairy-folk?"

Simon ducked his head in embarrassment. "Jiriki
seemed to say that it would be a long time before he
could join us, if he even could. Also—and I cannot prove
this. Highness, it is just a feeling—I think he would let
me know somehow if he were coming to bring us help.
Jiriki knows how impatient we mortals are." He smiled
sadly. "He knows how much it would lift our spirits if we
knew they were coming."

"Merciful Aedon and His mother." Freosel was still
stunned. "Fairies'"

Josua nodded thoughtfully. "So. Well, if the folks who
make those lights are not friends, they are most likely

270 Tad Williams

enemies—although, now that I think on it, perhaps you
saw the campfires of some of the folk Freosel spoke of,
those who have fled Sesuad'ra." He frowned. "I will
think on this, too. Perhaps we will send a scouting party
tomorrow. I do not wish to remain ignorant of whoever
might be sharing our little corner of Osten Ard." He
stood, brushing ashes from his breeches, and tucked the
stump of his right wrist into his cloak. "That will be all.
I release you to find what slim provender you can to
break your fast."

The prince turned and walked into his tent. Deomoth
watched him go, then turned to look out at the edge of the
great hill, where the standing stones loomed against a
gray mist, as though Sesuad'ra floated in a sea of noth-
ingness. He frowned at the thought and moved closer to
the fire.

A

In the dream. Doctor Morgenes stood before Simon,
dressed as though for a long journey, wearing a traveling
cloak with a tasseled hood and scorchmarks blackening
its hem, as though its owner had ridden through flames.
Little of the old man's face could be seen in the darkened
depths of the hood—a glint from his spectacles, the white
flash of his beard; other than that, the doctor's face was
only hint and shadow. Behind Morgenes lay no familiar
vista, but only a swirling patch of pearlescent nothingness
like the eye of a blizzard.

"It is not enough merely to fight back, Simon," the doc-
tor's voice said, "... even if you are only fighting to stay
alive. There must be more."

"More?" As delighted as he was to see this dream-
Morgenes, Simon somehow knew he had only moments
to grasp what the old man said to him. Precious time was
slipping away- "What does that mean, 'more'?"

"It means you must fight for something. Otherwise you
are no more than a straw man in a wheatfield—you can
scare the crows away, you can even kill them, but you will

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER 271

never win them over. You cannot stone all the crows in the
world...."

"Kill crows? What do you mean?"

"Hate is not enough. Simon ... it is never enough."
The old man seemed about to say more, but the white
emptiness behind him was abruptly slashed by a great
stripe of vertical shadow which seemed to grow out of the
very nothingness. Although without substance, still the
shadow seemed oppressively heavy—a thick column of
darkness that could have been a tower, or a tree, or the
upright rim of an oncoming wheel; it bisected the void
behind the doctor's hooded figure as neatly as a heraldic
blazon.

"Morgenes!" Simon cried, but in this dream his voice
was suddenly weak, almost stifled by the weight of the
long shadow. "Doctor.' Don't leave!"

"I had to leave a long time ago," the old man cried, his
voice faint, too. "You've done the work without me. And
remember—the false messenger!" The doctor's voice sud-
denly slid upward in pitch until it became a piping shriek.
"False!" he cried. "Faaaallllsssse!"

His hooded shape began to crumple and shrink, the
cloak flapping madly. At last,-the old man was gone;

where he had stood, a tiny silver bird beat its wings. It
suddenly darted up into the emptiness, circling first sun-
wise, then widdershins, until it was only a speck. An in-
stant later it was gone.

"Doctor!" Simon squinted after it. He reached up, but
something was restraining his arms, a heavy weight that
clung to him and pushed him down, as though the milky
void had become thick as a sodden blanket. He struggled
against it. "No! Come back! I need to know more. ..."

"It is me, Simon!" Binabik hissed. "More quiet,
please!" The troll shifted his weight once more until he
was almost sitting on the young man's chest. "Stop now!
If you keep up these strugg ling-about movements, you
will hit my nose again."

"What. . . ?" Simon gradually stopped thrashing.
"Binabik?"

272

Tad Williams

"From bruised nose to wounded toes," the troll sniffed.
"Have you finished with your flinging of arms and legs?"

"Did I wake you up?" Simon asked.

Binabik slid down and crouched beside the pallet. "No.
/ was coming to wake you—that is the truth of it. But
what was this dream that caused you so much worry and
tearfulness?"

Simon shook his head. "It's not important. I don't re-
member it very well, anyway."

He actually remembered every word, but he wished to
think about it a while longer before he discussed the sub-
ject with Binabik. Morgenes had seemed more vivid in
this dream than he had in others—more real. In a way, it
had almost been like having a last meeting with his be-
loved doctor. Simon had grown covetous of the few
things he could call his own: he did not yet wish to share
this small thing with anybody. "Why did you wake me?"
He yawned to cover the change of subject. "I don't have
to stand guard tonight."

"That is true." Binabik's surprising smile was a brief
pale blur in the light of the dying embers. "But I am
wishing you to get up, put on your boots and other
clothes for traveling out of doors, and then be coming
with me."

"What?" Simon sat up, listening for the sound of
alarum or attack, but heard nothing louder than the ever-
present wind. He slumped back down into his bed and
rolled over, turning his back to the troll. "I don't want to
go anywhere. I'm tired. Let me go back to sleep."

"This is a thing that you will be finding is worth your
trouble."

"What is it?" he grumbled into his upper arm.

"A secret, but a secret of great excitingness,"

"Bring it to me in the morning. I'll be very excited
then."

"Simon!" Binabik was a little less jovial. "Do not be so
lazy. This is being very important! Do you have no trust
in me?"

Groaning as though the entire weight of the earth had
been tipped onto his shoulders, Simon rolled over again

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER           273

and levered himself into a sitting position. "Is it really
important?"

Binabik nodded.

"And you won't tell me what it is?"

Binabik shook his head. "But you will soon be discov-
ering. That is my promise."

Simon stared at the troll, who seemed inhumanly cheer-
ful for this dark hour of the night. "Whatever it is, it's
certainly put you in a good mood," he growled.

"Come." Binabik stood up, excited as a child at the
Aedontide feasting. "I have Homefinder with her saddle
upon her back already. Qantaqa is also waiting with im-
mense wolfly patience. Come!"

Simon allowed himself to be coerced into boots and a
thick wool shirt. Dragging his bed-warm cloak about him,
he stumbled out of the tent after Binabik, then nearly
turned and stumbled right back in again. "S'Bloody
Tree!" he swore. "It's cold!"

Binabik pursed his lips at the oath, but said nothing.
Now that Simon had been made a knight, the troll seemed
to have decided that he was a grown man and could curse
if he wished to. Instead, the little man lifted a hand to
gesture toward Homefinder, who stood pawing at the
snowy ground a few paces away, bathed in the light of a
torch thrust handle-first into the snow. Simon approached
her, stopping to stroke her nose and whisper a few muzzy
words in her warm ear, then dragged himself clumsily
into the saddle. The troll gave a low whistle and Qantaqa
appeared silently out of the darkness. Binabik sank his
fingers in her thick gray fur and clambered onto her broad
back, then leaned over to pick up the torch before urging
the wolf forward,

They made their way out of the close-quartered tent
city and across the broad summit of Sesuad'ra, across the
Fire Garden where the wind whirled little eddies of snow
across the half-buried tiles, then past Leavetaking House,
where a pair of sentries stood. Not far beyond the armed
men was a standing stone which marked the edge of the
wide road that wound down from the summit. The sen-
tries, bundled up against the cold so that only the gleam

274

Tad Williams

of their eyes could be seen below their helms, raised their
spears in salute. Simon waved, puzzled.

"They don't seem very curious about where we're go-
ing."

"We have permission." Binabik smiled mysteriously.

The skies overhead were almost clear. As they made
their way down the hill along the crumbling stones of the
old Sithi road, Simon looked up to see mat the stars had
returned. It was a cheering sight, although he was be-
mused to find that none of them seemed quite familiar.
The moon, appearing for a moment from behind a spit of
clouds, showed him that it was earlier than he had at first
thought—perhaps only a few hours after sunset. Still, it
was late enough that almost the whole of New Gadrinsett
was abed- Where on earth could Binabik be leading him?

Several times as they made their spiraling circuit of the
Stone, Simon thought he saw lights sparkling in the dis-
tant forest, tiny points dimmer even than the stars high
overhead- But when he pointed them out, the troll merely
nodded as though such a sight was no more than he had
expected,

By the time they reached the place where the old road
widened out once more, pale Sedda had vanished behind
a curtain of mist on the horizon. They came down onto
the sloping shoulder of land at the hill's base. The waters
of the great lake lapped against the stone. A few drowned
treetops still protruded above the surface like the heads of
giants sleeping beneath the black waters.

Without a word, Binabik dismounted and led Qantaqa
to one of the flatboats moored near the end of the road.
Simon, lulled into an unquestioning dreaminess, slid
down from the saddle and led his horse aboard. Once
Binabik had lit the lamp in the bow, they lifted their poles
and pushed out onto the freezing water.

"Not many more trips can we make this way," Binabik
said quietly. "Luckily, that will not matter soon."

"Why won't it matter?" Simon asked, but the troll only
waved his small hand.

Soon the slope of the submerged valley began to fall
away beneath the boat, until at last their poles reached

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER                           275

down and touched nothing. They took up the paddles that
were lying in the barge's shallow bottom. It was hard
work—the ice seemed to grab and cling to hull and
paddle-blade alike, as though urging the boat to stop and
become part of the greater solidification. Simon did not
notice for a while that Binabik had steered them toward
the northeast shore, where Enki-e-Shao'saye had once
stood and where the strange glimmerings had appeared.

"We're going to the lights'" he said. His voice seemed
to sigh and quickly fade, vanishing into the enormity of
the darkened valley.

"Yes."

"Why? Are the Sithi there?"

"Not the Sithi, no." Binabik was staring out across the
wind-rippled water, his posture that of one who could
barely contain himself. "I am thinking that you spoke
truly: Jiriki would not keep his coming a secret."

"Then who is there?"

"You will see."

The troll's whole attention was now fixed on the far
shore, which grew ever closer. Simon saw the great
breakfront of trees looming up, shadowy and impenetra-
ble, and suddenly remembered how the writing-priests
back at the Hayholt would lift their heads almost as one
movement when some errand brought him into their
sanctuary—a vast crowd of ancient men tugged up from
their parchmenty dreams by his blundering entrance.

Soon the bottom of the boat scraped, then ran aground.
Simon and Binabik stepped out and pulled it up onto a
more secure spot while Qantaqa loped in wide, splashing
circles around them. When Homefmder had been coaxed
out onto the shore, Binabik relit his torch and they rode
into the forest.

The trees of the Aldheorte grew close together here, as
though huddling for warmth. The torch revealed an in-
credible profusion of leaves in an uncountable variety of
shapes and sizes, as well as what seemed to be every va-
riety of creeper, lichen, and moss. all grown together into
a disordered riot of vegetation. Binabik led them onto a
narrow deer track. Simon's boots were wet and his feet

276 Tad Williams

were cold and getting colder. He wondered again what
they were doing in this place at such an hour.

He heard the noise long before he could see anything
but the choke of trees, a whining, discordant skirling of
flutes that wound in and out around a deep, almost inau-
dible drumbeat. Simon turned to Binabik, but the troll
was listening and nodding and did not see Simon's inquir-
ing glance. Soon they could see light, something wanner
and less steady than moonlight, flickering through the
thick trees. The odd music grew louder, and Simon felt
his heart began to beat more swiftly. Surely Binabik knew
what he was doing, he chided himself. After all the dread-
ful times they had survived together, Simon could trust
his friend. But Binabik seemed so strangely distracted'
The little man's head was cocked to one side in an atti-
tude that mirrored Qantaqa's, as though he heard things in
the weird melody and incessant drums that Simon could
not even guess at.

Simon was full of nervous anticipation. He realized
that he had been smelling something vaguely familiar for
a long while. Even after he could no longer ignore it, he
was at first certain that it was nothing more than the scent
of his own clothing, but soon the pungency, me aliveness
of it could no longer be denied.

Wet wool.

"Binabik!" he cried—then, recognizing the truth, he
began to laugh.

They came down into a wide clearing. The crumbled
ruins of the old Sithi city lay all around, but now the dead
stone was painted with leaping flames: life had returned,
if not the life its builders had intended. All along the up-
per part of the dell, crowding and quietly clamoring,
bumped a great herd of snow-white rams. The bottom of
the dell, where the fires burned merrily, was equally filled
with trolls. Some were dancing or singing. Others were
playing on trollish instruments, producing the skittering,
piping music. Most simply watched and laughed.

"Sisqinanamook!" Binabik shouted. His face was
stretched in an impossibly delighted smile. "Henimaatuq!
Ea kup!"

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER

A score of faces, two score, three score or more, all
turned to stare up at the spot where he and Simon stood.
In an instant a great crowd was pushing up past the dis-
gruntled, sour-bleating rams. One small figure outstripped
the rest and within moments had reached Binabik's wide-
spread arms.

Simon was surrounded by chattering trolls. They
shouted and chuckled as they tugged at his garments and
patted him; the good will on their faces was unmistak-
able. He felt himself suddenly in the midst of old friends
and found that he was beaming back at them, his eyes
overbrimming. The strong scent of oil and fat that he re-
membered so well from Yiqanuc rose to his nostrils, but
at this moment it was a very pleasant scent indeed. He
turned, dazed, and looked for Binabik.

"How did you know?" he cried.

His friend stood a little way distant, an arm wrapped
around Sisqi. She was smiling almost as widely as he, and
the color had come out in her cheeks. "My clever
Sisqinanamook was sending me one ofOokequk's birds!"
Binabik said. "My people have been at camp here for two
days, building boats!"

"Building boats?" Simon felt himself gently jostled
from side to side by the ocean of little people that
hemmed him close.

'To come across our lake for joining Josua," Binabik
laughed. "One hundred brave trolls is Sisqi bringing to
help us! Now you will truly see why the Rimmersmen
still frighten their children with whispered stories of
Huhinka Valley!" He turned and embraced her again.

Sisqi ducked her head into the side of his neck for a
moment, then turned and faced Simon. "I read Ookekuq
book," she said, her Westerling awkward but understand-
able. "I speak more now, your talk." Her nod was almost
a bow. "Greetings, Simon."

"Greetings, Sisqi," he said. "It is good to see you
again."

"This is why I was wanting you to come, Simon."
Binabik waved his hand around the clearing. "Tomorrow

278

Tad Williams

will be enough time for talking of war. Tonight, friends
are being together again. We will sing and dance!"

Simon grinned at the joy evident in Binabik's face, a
happiness that was mirrored in the dark eyes of his be-
trothed. Simon's own weariness had melted away. "I'd
like that," he said, and meant it.

9

Pages in an 0(d Book

*

CuXWvike hands grasped at her. Empty eyes stared.
They were all around her, gray and shiny as frogs, and
she could not even scream.

Miriamele awakened with her throat so tightly con-
stricted that it ached. There were no clutching hands, no
eyes, only a sheet of cloth above her and the sound of
slapping waves. She lay on her back for long moments,
fighting for breath, then sat up.

No hands, no eyes, she promised herself. The kilpa, ap-
parently sated by their feast on the Eadne Cloud, had
scarcely troubled the landing boat.

Miriamele slid out from beneath the makeshift awning
she and the monk had constructed from the boat's oiled
broadcloth cover, then squinted, trying to- find some trace
of the sun so she could gauge the time of day. The ocean
that surrounded her had a dull, leaden look, as though the
vast sheet of water surrounding the boat had been ham-
mered out by a legion of blacksmiths. The gray-green ex-
panse stretched in every direction, featureless but for the
wave-crests glimmering in the diffuse light.

Cadrach was sitting before her on one of the front
benches, the oar handles held beneath his arms while he
stared down at his hands. The bits of cloak he had
wrapped around his palms for protection were in tatters,
shredded by the repetitive slide of the oar handles.

"Your poor hands." Miriamele was surprised by her
own rasping voice. Cadrach, more startled than she,
flinched.

280

Tad Williams

"My lady." He peered at her. "Is all well?"

"No," she said, but tried to smile. "I hurt. I hurt all
over. But look at your hands, they are terrible."

He stared ruefully at his ragged skin. "I have rowed a
little too much, I fear. I am still not strong."

Miriamele frowned. "You are mad, Cadrach! You have
been in chains for days—what are you doing pulling at

oars? You will kill yourself"

The monk shook his head. "I did not work at it long,
my lady. These wounds on my hands are a tribute to the
weakness of my flesh, not the diligence of my labors."

"And I have nothing to put on them," Miriamele fret-
ted, then looked up suddenly. "What time of the day is

it?"

It took the monk a moment to answer the unexpected
question. "Why, early evening. Princess. Just after sun-
set."

"And you let me sleep all day' How could you?"

"You needed to sleep. Lady. You had bad dreams, but
I'm sure that you are still much better for ..." Cadrach
trailed off, then lifted his curled fingers in a gesture of
insufficiency- "In any case, it was best."

Miriamele hissed her exasperation. "I will find some-
thing for those hands. Perhaps in one of Gan Itai's pack-
ages." She kept her mouth firm, despite the quiver she
felt at the corners when she spoke the Niskie's name.
"Stay there, and do not move those oars an inch if you
value your life."

"Yes, my lady."

Moving gingerly for the comfort of her painful mus-
cles, Miriamele at last turned up the small oilcloth packet
of useful articles that Gan Itai had bundled with the water
skins and food. It contained the promised fishhooks, as
well as a length of strong and curiously dull-colored cord
of a type Miriamele had not seen before; there was also
a small knife and a sack that contained a collection of
tiny jars, none of them bigger than a man's thumb.
Miriamele unstoppered them one by one, sniffing each
cautiously.

"This one's salt, I think," she said, "—but what would

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER            28l

someone at sea need with salt, when they could get their
own by drying water?" She looked to Cadrach, but he
only shook his round head. "This one has some yellowish
powder in it." She closed her eyes to take another sniff.
"It smells fragrant, but not like something to eat. Hmm."
She opened three more, discovering crushed petals in one,
sweet oil in the second, and a pale unguent in the third
which made her eyes water when she leaned close.

"I know that scent," said Cadrach- "Mockfoil- Good
for poultices and such—the staple of a rustic healer's
apothecary."

"Then that's what I was looking for." Miriamele cut
some strips from the nightshirt she still wore underneath
her masculine clothing, then rubbed the unguent into
some of the strips and bound them firmly around
Cadrach's blistered hands. After she had finished, she
wrapped a few bits of dry cloth around the outside to
keep the others clean.

"There. That will help some, anyway."

"You are too kind. Lady." Although his tone was light,
Miriamele saw an unexpected glimmer in his eye, as
though a tear had blossomed. Embarassed and a little
unsure, she did not look too tlosely.

The sky, which had long since bled out its brighter col-
ors, was now rapidly going purple-blue. The wind quick-
ened, and Miriamele and Cadrach both drew their cloaks
closer about their necks. Miriamele leaned back against
the railing of the boat for a long, silent moment, feeling
the long craft roll from side to side on the cradling wa-
ters-

"So what do we do now? Where are we? Where are we
going?"

Cadrach was still prodding at the dressings on his
hands. "Well, as to where we are at this moment. Lady, I
would say we were somewhere between Spenit and Risa
Islands, in the middle of the Bay of Firannos. We're most
likely about three leagues off shore—a few days' rowing,
even if we pull oars the day long...."

"There's a good thought." Miriamele crawled forward
to the bench Cadrach had occupied and lowered the oars

282 Tad Williams

into the water- "Might as well keep moving while we're
talking. Are we facing the right direction?" She laughed
sourly. "But how could you say when we probably don't
know where we're going?"

"In truth, we should do well as we are headed. Prin-
cess. I'll look again when the stars come out, but the sun
was all I needed to know that we are pointing northeast,
and that is as fine as we need to be for now. But are you
sure you should tire yourself? Perhaps I can manage a lit-
tle more...."

"Oh, Cadrach, you with your bleeding hands'? Non-
sense." She dipped the oarblades into the water and
pulled, slipping backward on the seat when one of them
popped free of the water. "No, don't show me," she said
quickly. "I learned how when I was little—it's only that
I haven't done it for a long time." She scowled in concen-
tration, searching for the half-remembered stroke. "We
used to practice on some of the Gleniwent's small back-
waters. My father used to take me."

The memory of Elias on a rowing bench before her,
laughing as one of the oars floated away across green-
scummed water, blew through her. In that snatch of recol-
lection, her father seemed scarcely older than she now
was herself—perhaps, she suddenly realized with a kind
of startled wonder, he had been in some ways still a boy,
for all his manly age. There was no question that the im-
posing weight of his mighty, fabled, and beloved father
had pressed down upon him hard, forcing him to wilder
and wilder feats of valor. She remembered her mother
fighting back fearful tears at some report of Elias' battle-
field madness, tears that the tale-bringers never under-
stood. It was strange to think about her father this way.
Perhaps for all his bravery he had been unsure and
afraid—terrified that he would stay a child forever, a son
with an undying sire.

Unsettled, Miriamele tried to sweep the curiously
clinging memory from her mind and concentrate instead
on finding the ancient rhythm of oars in water.

"Good, my lady, you do very well." Cadrach settled
back, his bandaged hands and round face pale as mush-

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER                           2§3

room flesh in the swiftly darkening evening. "So, we
know where we are—add or subtract a few million buck-
ets of seawater. As to where we are going ... well, what
say you, Princess? You are the one who rescued me, after
all."

She suddenly felt the oars heavy as stone in her hands.
A fog of purposelessness rolled over her. "I don't know,"
she whispered. "I have nowhere to go."

Cadrach nodded his head as though he had expected
her answer. "Then let me cut you a bit of bread and a
ciniis-wortn of cheese, Lady, and I will tell you what I am
thinking."

Miriamele did not want to stop rowing, so the monk
kindly consented to feed her bites between strokes. His
comical look while dodging the backswing of the oars
made her laugh; a dry crust stuck in her throat. Cadrach
thumped her back, then gave her a swig of water.

"That is enough. Lady. You must stop for a moment
and finish your meal. Then, if you wish, you may start
again. It would fly in the face of God's mercy to escape
the kil ... the many dangers we have, then to die of a
foolish strangulation." He watched her critically as she
ate. "You are thin, too. A girl y'our age should be putting
meat on her bones. What did you eat on that cursed
ship?"

"What Gan Itai brought me. The last week, I could not
bear to sit at the same table with ... that man." She
fought back another wave of despair and instead waved
her heel of bread indignantly. "But look at you! You are
a skeleton—a fine one to talk?" She forced the lump of
cheese he had given her back into his hand. "Eat that."

"I wish I had a jug." Cadrach washed the morsel down
with a small swallow of water. "By Aedon's Golden Hair,
a few dribbles of red Perdruin would do wonders."

"But you don't have any," Miriamele replied, irritated.
*tThe^e is no wine for ... for a very long way. So do
something else instead. Tell me where you think we
should go, if you really do have an idea." She licked her
fingers, stretched until her bruised muscles twinged, then
reached for the oars. "And tell me anything else you want

284

Tad Williams

as well. Distract me." She slowly resumed her rhythmic
pulling.

For a while, the chop-swish of the blades diving and
surfacing was the only sound except for the endless mur-
muration of the sea.

'There is a place," said Cadrach. "It is an inn—a hos-
tel, I suppose—in Kwanitupul."

"The marsh-city?" Miriamele asked, suspicious. "Why
would we want to go there—and if we did, what differ-
ence would it make which inn we chose? Is the wine so
good?"

The monk put on a look of injured dignity. "My lady,
you wrong me." His expression became more serious.
"No, I suggest it because it may be a place of refuge in
these dangerous times—and because it is where Dinivan
was going to send you."

"Dinivan!" The name was a shock. Miriamele realized
that she had not thought about the priest in many days,
despite his kindness, despite his terrible death at Pryrates'
hands. "Why on earth would you know what Dinivan
wanted to do? And why should it matter now anyway?"

"How I know what Dinivan wanted is easy enough to
explain. I listened at keyholes—and other places. I heard
him discuss you with the lector and tell of his plans for
you ... although he did not inform the lector of all the
reasons why."

"You did such a thing!?" Miriamele's outrage was
quickly dampened by the memories of doing just such a
thing herself. "Oh, never mind. I am beyond surprise. But
you must change your ways, Cadrach. Such skulking—it
goes with the drinking and lying."

"I do not think you know much about wine, my lady,"
he said with a wry smile, "so I may not consider you
much of a teacher in that study. As for my other flaws—
well, 'necessity beckons, self-interest comes following,'
as they say in Abaingeat- And those flaws may prove the
saving of us both, at least from our current situation."

"So why did Dinivan plan to send me to this inn?" she
asked. "Why not let me stay at the Sancellan Aedonitis,
where I would be safe?"

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER            285

"As safe as Dinivan and the lector were, my lady?"
Despite the harshness, there was real pain in his voice.
"You know what happened there—although, the gods be
thanked, you were spared seeing it with your poor young
eyes. In any case, Dinivan and I had a falling out, but he
was a good man and no fool. Too many people in and out
of that place, too many folk with too many different needs
and wants and problems to solve .. - and most of all, too
many wagging tongues. I swear, they call Aedon's monu-
ment Mother Church, but at the Sancellan she is the most
babble-breathed old gossip in the history of the world."

"So he planned to send me to some inn in the
marshes?"

"I think so, yes—he spoke in a general way even to the
lector, with no naming of names. But I am convinced I
have it right because it is a place we all knew. Doctor
Morgenes helped its owner to buy it. It is a place closely
entangled with the secrets Dinivan and Morgenes and I
shared."

Miriamele brought the oars to an awkward stop, lean-
ing on the poles as she stared at Cadrach. He gazed back
calmly, as though he had said nothing unusual. "My
lady?" he asked at last.

"Doctor Morgenes ... of the Hayholt?"

"Of course." He lowered his chin until it seemed to rest
on his collarbone. "A great man. A kind, kind man. I
loved him. Princess Miriamele. He was like a father to so
many of us."

Mist was beginning to hover above the surface of the
water, pale as cotton wool. Miriamele took a deep breath
and shivered. "I don't understand. How did you know
him? Who is 'us'?"

The monk let his gaze pass from her face out onto the
shrouded sea. "It is a long story. Princess—a very long
one. Have you ever heard of something called the League
of the Scroll?"

"Yes! At Naglimund. The old man Jamauga was part of
it."

"Jamauga." Cadrach sighed. "Another good man, al-
though the gods know, we have had our differences. I hid

286 Tad Williams

from him while I was at Josua's stronghold. How was
he?"

"I liked him," Miriamele said slowly. "He was one of
those people who really listen—but I only talked with
him a few times. I wonder what happened to him when
Naglimund fell." She looked sharply at Cadrach. "What
does all that have to do with you?"

"As I said, it is a long tale."

Miriamele laughed; it quickly turned into another
shiver. "We don't have much else to do. Tell me."

"Let me first find something else to keep you warm."
Cadrach crawled back into the shelter and brought out her
monk's cloak. He draped it around Miriamele's shoulders
and pulled the hood over her short hair. "Now you look
like the convent-bound noblewoman you once claimed to
be."

"Just talk to me—then I won't notice the cold."

"You are still weak, though. I wish you would put the
oars down and let me take a turn, or at least lie down
under the awning, out of the wind."

"Don't treat me like a little girl, Cadrach." Although
she frowned, she was strangely touched. Was this the
same man she had tried to drown—the same man who
had tried to sell her into slavery? "You're not going to
touch the oars tonight. When I get too tired, we'll drop
the anchor. Until then, I'll row slowly. Now talk."

The monk waved his hands in a gesture of surrender-
"Very well." He fluffed his own cloak around him, then
settled down with his back against a bench and his knees
drawn up before him so that he looked up at her from the
darkness of the boat's bottom. The sky had gone almost
completely black, and there was just enough moonlight to
show his face. "I am afraid that I don't know where ex-
actly to begin."

"At the beginning, of course." Miriamele raised the
oars from the water and slid them back in again. A few
drops of spray spattered her face.

"Ah. Yes." He thought for a moment. "Well, if I go
back to the true beginnings of my story, then perhaps the
later parts will be easier to understand—and that way I

TO GREEN ANOEL TOWER           287

can also postpone the most shameful tales for a little
while longer. It is not a happy story, Miriamele, and it
winds through a great deal of shadow ... shadow that has
now fallen over many people besides a drunken
Hernystiri monk.

"I was born in Crannhyr, you know—when I say I am
Cadrach ec-Crannhyr, only the last part is true. I was bom
Padreic, I have had other names, too, few of them pleas-
ant, but Padreic I was born, and Cadrach I now am, I sup-
pose.

"I stretch no truth when I say that Crannhyr is one of
the strangest cities in all of Osten Ard. It is walled like a
great fortress, but it has never been attacked, nor is there
anything particularly worth stealing in it. The people of
Crannhyr are secretive in a way that even other Hernystiri
do not understand. A Crannhyr-man, it is said, would
sooner buy everyone at the inn a drink than let even his
closest friend into his home—and no one yet has seen a
Crannhyr-man buy anyone's drink but his own. Crannhyr
folk are close; that is the best word, I think. They talk in
few words—how unlike the rest of the Hernystiri, in
whose blood runs poetry!—w^ they make no show of
wealth or luck at all, for fear that the gods will become
jealous and take it back. Even the streets are close as con-
spirators, the buildings leaning so near together in some
spots that you have to blow out all your breath before you
go in and cannot suck in more air until you come out at
the far end.

"Crannhyr was one of the first cities built by men in
Osten Ard, and that age breathes in everything, so that
people talk quietly from birth, as though they are afraid
that if they speak too loud the old walls will tumble down
and expose all their secrets to the light of day. Some peo-
ple say that the Sithi had a hand in the making of the
place, but although we Hernystirmen are never foolish
enough to disbelieve in the Sithi—unlike some of our
neighbors—I for one do not think the Peaceful Ones had
anything to do with Crannhyr. I have seen Sithi ruins, and
they are nothing like the cramped and self-protective

288 Tad Williams

walls of the city in which I spent my childhood. No, men
built it—frightened men, if my eye tells me anything."

"But it sounds a terrible place," Miriamele said. "All
that whispering!"

"Yes, I did not like it much myself." Cadrach smiled, a
tiny gleam in the shadow. "I spent most of my childhood
wanting to get away. My mother died when I was young,
you see, and my father was a hard, cold man, fitly made
for that hard, cold city. He never spoke a word more to
me or my brothers and sisters than was necessary, and did
not embellish even those words with kindness. He was a
coppersmith, and I suppose that hammering at a hot forge
all day to put food into our mouths showed that he recog-
nized his obligations, so he felt bound to do no more.
Most Crannhyri are like that—dour, and scornful of those
who are not. I could not wait to make my own way in the
world.

"Strangely, though—and it is often the way—for one
so bedeviled by secrets and quietude. I developed a sur-
prising love for old books and ancient learning. Seen
through the eyes of the ancients—scholars like Plesinnen
Myrmenis and Cuimnhe's Frethis—even Crannhyr was
wonderful and mystical, its secretive ways hiding not just
old unpleasantness, but strange wisdoms that freer, less
arcane places could not boast. In the Tethtain Library—
founded in our city centuries ago by the great Holly King
himself—I found the only kindred souls in that entire
walled prison, people who, like myself, lived for the
lights of earlier days, and who enjoyed running down a
bit of lost lore the way some men revel in chasing down
a buck deer and putting an arrow in its heart.

"And that is where I met Morgenes. In those days—
and this is almost two score years ago, my young
princess—he was still inclined to travel. If there is a man
who has seen more than Morgenes, who has been to more
places, I have never heard of him. The doctor spent many
hours among the scrolls of the Tethtain Library and knew
the archives better man even the old priests who watched
over them. He saw my interest in matters of history and
forgotten lore and took me in hand, guiding me toward

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER                           289

useful paths that 1 would otherwise never have found.
When some years had passed, and he saw that my devo-
tion to learning was not a thing to be sloughed off with
childhood, he told me of the League of the Scroll, which
was formed long ago by Saint Eahlstan Fiskerne, the
Hayholt's Fisher King. Eahlstan inherited FingiFs castle
and his sword Minneyar, but he wanted nothing to do
with the Rimmersman's heritage of destruction—
especially the destruction of learning. Eahlstan wanted in-
stead to conserve knowledge that might otherwise vanish
into shadow—and to use that knowledge when it seemed
necessary."

"Use it for what?"

"We often argued about that. Princess. It was never 'for
Good' or 'for Righteousness'—the Scrollbearers realized
that once such a broad ideal is in place, one must meddle
in everything. I suppose the clearest explanation is that
the League acts to protect its own learning, to prevent a
dark age that would bury again the secrets it has so labo-
riously unearthed. But at other times the League has acted
only to protect itself rather than its products.

"However, I knew little of such difficult questions
then. For me, the League -sounded like a dream of
heaven—a happy brotherhood of extraordinary scholars
searching out the secrets of Creation together. I was delir-
iously eager to join. Thus, when our shared love of schol-
arship had ripened into a friendship—although on my pan
it was more like a love for a kind father—Morgenes took
me to meet Trestolt, who was Jarnauga's father, and old
Ookekuq, a wise man of the troll people who live in the
far north. Morgenes put me forward as fit for the League,
and those two took me in without hesitation, as whole-
heartedly and trustfully as if they had known me all their
lives—but that was because of Morgenes, you see. With
the exception of Trestolt, whose wife had died a few
years before, none of the other Scrollbearers was married.
This has often been the case throughout the League's cen-
turies of existence. Its members are generally the kind of
folk—and it is true of the women who have carried the
Scroll as well—who are more in love with knowledge

290 Tad Williams

than with mankind. Not that they do not care for other
people, you must understand, but they love them better
when they can keep them at a distance; in practice, people
are a distraction. So for the Scrollbearers, the League it-
self became a kind of family. Thus, it was no surprise that
any candidate put forward by the doctor should be
warmly greeted. Morgenes—although he resisted any
move to grant him power—was in a way a father to all
the League's members, despite the fact that some of them
seemed older than he did. But who will ever know when
or where Morgenes was born?"                               ~

Down in the darkness of the hull, Cadrach laughed.
Miriamele slowly dipped the oars into the water, listening
dreamily to his words as the boat rose and fell.

"Later," he continued, "I met the other Scrollbearer,        ^
Xorastra of Perdruin. She had been a nun, although by the        &
time I met her she had left her order. The inn at        ^
Kwanitupul that I spoke of earlier belongs to her, by the
way. She was a fiercely clever woman, denied by her sex
the life she would otherwise have led: she should have
been a king's minister, that one. Xorastra also accepted
me, then introduced me to a pair of her own candidates,
for she and Morgenes had long had it in their minds to
bring the numbers of the League back up to seven, which
had traditionally been its full measure.

"Both of them were younger than I was. Dinivan was
a mere youth at the time, studying with the Usirean broth-
ers. Sharp-eyed Xorastra had seen the spark in him, and
thought that if he were brought into contact with Mor-
genes and the others, that spark might become a great and
warming fire by which the church she still loved could
greatly benefit. The other that she put forward was a
clever young priest, just ordained, who came from a poor
island family, but who had made his way into a small sort
of prominence by the swiftness of his mind. Morgenes,
after much talk with Xorastra and their two northern col-
leagues, accepted these two new additions. When we all
met the next year in Tungoldyr at the longhouse of
Trestolt, the numbers of the League of the Scroll were
seven once more."

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER                           29!

Cadrach's words had become heavy and slow, and
when at last he paused, Miriamele thought he might be
falling asleep. But instead, when he spoke again there
was a terrible hollowness to his voice. "Better they had
kept us all out. Better that the League itself had fallen
back into the dust of history."

When he did not speak more, Miriamele straightened
up. "What do you mean, Cadrach? What could you have
done that was so bad?"

He groaned. "Not me, Princess—my sins came later.
No, it was in the moment we brought that young priest
into our midst ... for that was Pryrates."

Miriamele sucked in a deep breath, and for a moment,
despite her warming feelings for Cadrach, felt the web of
some terrible conspiracy gathering around her. Were all
her enemies in alliance? Was the monk playing some
deeper game, so that now she was in his hands utterly,
adrift on an empty sea? Then she remembered the letter
that Gan Itai had brought her.

"But you told me that," she said, relieved. "You wrote
to me and said something about Pryrates—that you had
made him what he was."

"If I said that," Cadrach replied sadly, "then I was ex-
aggerating in my grief. The seeds of great evil must have
been in him already, otherwise it could never have flow-
ered so swiftly and so forcefully ... or such is my guess.
My own part came much later, and my shame is that al-
though I already knew him for a black-souled and heart-
less creature, I helped him anyway."

"But why? And helped him how?"

"Ah, Princess, I feel the drunken honesty of the
Hemystiri on me tonight without even tasting a swallow
of wine—but still there are things I would rather not tell.
The story of my downfall is mine alone. Most of my
friends who were near me in those years are dead now.
Let me say only this: for many reasons, both because of
the things that I studied, many of which I wish I had left
alone, and because of my own pain and the many drunken
nights I spent trying to kill it, the joy that for a time I
found in life soon faded away. When I was a child, I be-

Tad Williams

lieved in the gods of my people. When I was older, I
came to doubt them, and believed instead in the single
god of the Aedonites—single, though He is dreadfully
mixed up with Usires His son and Elysia the blessed
mother. Later, in the first blossoming of my scholarship,
I came to disbelieve in all gods, old and new. But a cer-
tain dread gripped my heart when I became a man, and
now I believe in the gods once more .,. Ah, how I be-
lieve! ... for I know myself to he cursed." The monk qui-
etly wiped his eyes and nose on his sleeve. He was
sunken now in a shadow even the moonlight could not

pierce.

"Cursed? What do you mean? Cursed how?"
"I do not know, or I would have found some hedge-
wizard to grind me up a powder-charm a long time ago.
No, I am joking, my lady, and a bleak joke it is. There are
curses in the world no spell can dismiss—just as, I pre-
sume, there is good luck that no evil eye or envious rival
can overthrow, but which can only be lost by its posses-
sor. I only know fhat long ago the world became a heavy
burden on me, one that my shoulders have proved too
weak to bear. I became a drunkard in earnest—no local
clown who drinks too many pots and sings the neighbors
awake on his way home, but a chill-spirited, heart-lonely
seeker of oblivion. My books were my only solace, but
even they seemed to me full of the breath of tombs: they
spoke only of dead lives, dead thoughts, and worst of all,
dead and juiceless hopes, a million of them stillborn for
every one that had a brief butterfly moment under the
sun.

"So I drank, and I railed at the stars, and I drank. My
drunkenness sent me down into the pit of despond, and
my books, especially the volume with which I was then
most deeply involved, only made my dread worse. So
oblivion seemed even more desirable. Soon I was not
wanted in the places where once I had been everyone's
friend, which made me even more bitter. When the keep-
ers of the Tethtain Library told me I would no longer be
welcomed there, I fell down as into a deep hole, a season-
long riot of black drunkenness from which I awoke to

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWfcR

293

find myself by the side of a road outside Abaingeat, na-
ked and without a cintis-piece. Clothed only in brambles
and leaves like the lowest beast, I made my way by night
to the house of a nobleman I knew, a good man and a
lover of learning who had been, from time to time, my
willing patron. He let me in, fed me, then gave me a bed
for the night. When the sun rose, he gave me a monk's
gown that had belonged to his brother and wished me
good luck and Godspeed away from his house.

"There was disgust in his eyes that morning. Lady, a
kind of loathing that I pray you never see in the eyes of
another person. He knew of my habits, you see, and my
tale of abduction and robbery did not fool him. I knew, as
I stood in his doorway, that I had passed beyond the walls
that surrounded my fellow men, that I was now as one
unclean from plague. You see, all my drinking and
wretched acts had only done this: it had made my curse as
plain for others to see as it had been to me long before."

Cadrach's voice, which had grown more deathly during
this recitation, now trailed off in a hoarse whisper.
Miriamele listened to him breathing for a long while. She
could think of nothing to say.

"But what had you actually done?" she tried at last.
"You speak of being cursed, but you hadn't done any-
thing wrong—besides drinking too much wine, that 's."

Cadrach's laugh was unpleasantly cracked. "Oh, ,he
wine was only to dull the pain. That is the thing with
these stains, my lady. Though others, especially innocents
like yourself, cannot always see them, the stain is there
nevertheless, and others sense it, as the beasts of the field
sense one of their number who is sick or mad. You tried
to drown me yourself, didn't you?"

"But that was different'" Miriamele said indignantly.
"That was for something you did!"

"Never fear," the monk murmured. "I have done
enough wrong since that night by the road in Abaingeat to
justify any punishment."

Miriamele pulled the oars in. "Is it shallow enough to
drop the anchor?" she asked, trying to keep her voice
calm. "My arms are tired."

294

Tad Williams

"I will find out."

While the monk rooted the anchor out of the hold and
made sure that its cord was tied firmly to the boat,
Miriamele tried to think of something she could do to
help him. The more she made him talk, the deeper the
wounds seemed to be. His earlier good cheer, she sensed,
was nothing but a thin skin that had grown over these raw
places. Was it better to make him speak, when it was ob-
viously painful, or simply to let it go? She wished that
Getoe were here, or little Binabik with his shrewd and
careful touch.

When the anchor had splashed over the side and the
rope had fizzed down into the depths behind it, the two of
them sat quietly for a while. At last, Cadrach spoke, his
voice a little lighter than it had been.

"The cord only played out twenty ells or so before it
struck bottom, so we may be closer to shore than I had
thought. Still, you should try to sleep again, Miriamele.
The day will be long tomorrow. If we are to reach shore,
we will have to take turns at those oars so we can keep
moving all day."

"Might there not be a ship around somewhere that
might see us and pick us up?"

"I don't know if that would be the luckiest thing for us-
Do not forget that Nabban now belongs utterly to your fa-
ther and Pryrates. I think we will be happiest if we can
make our way quietly to shore and disappear into the
poorer parts of Nabban, then find our way to Xorastra's

inn."

"You never explained about Pryrates," she said boldly,
inwardly praying that it was not a mistake. "What hap-
pened between the two of you?"

Cadrach sighed. "Would you really force me to tell you
such black things. Lady? It was only weakness and fear
that led me to mention them in my letter, when I was
frightened you would mistake the Earl of Eadne for
something better than he was."

"I would not force you to do anything that would hurt
you more, Cadrach. But I would like to know. These are

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER

295

the secrets that are behind our troubles, remember? It is
not the time to hold them back, however bad they are."

The monk nodded slowly. "Spoken like a king's
daughter—but spoken well. Ah, gods of earth and sky, if
I had known that one day I would have to tell such stories
and say "that is my life,' I think I would have pushed my
head into my father's kiln."

Miriamele made no reply but pulled her cloak tight.
Some of the nust had blown away, and the sea stretched
away beneath them like a great black tabletop. The stars
overhead seemed too small and chill to give off light;

they hung unsparkling, like flecks of milky stone.

"1 did not leave the fellowship of ordinary men com-
pletely empty-handed," Cadrach began. "There were cer-
tain things I had obtained—many of them legitimately, in
my early days of scholarship. One was a great treasure
which no one knew that I had. My possessions—those I
had not sold to buy wine—remained in the care of an old
friend. When it was decided I was no longer fit for the
company of those I had known, I took them back from
him ... against his protestations, for he knew I was not a
reliable keeper. Thus, when times became particularly
bad, I could usually find a dealer m rare manuscripts or
church-forbidden books and—usually at prices so low as
to approach robbery—get some money in exchange for
one of my prized books. But, as I said, one thing that I
had found was worth a thousandfold more than all the
rest. The story of its getting is a night's tale in itself, but
it was for long the one thing with which I would not part,
however desperate my circumstances. For you see, I had
found a copy of Du Svardenvyrd, the fabled book of mad
Nisses, the only copy that I have ever heard to exist in
modern days. Whether it was the original I do not know,
for the binding had long since disappeared, but the ...
person from whom I obtained it swore that it was genu-
ine; indeed, if it was a forgery, it was a work of brilliance
in itself. But copy or no, it contained the actual words of
Nisses—of that there was no doubt. No one could read
the dreadful things that I did, then look at the world
around him, and disbelieve."

296 Tad Williams

"I have heard of it," said Mirimele. "Who was Nis-
ses?"

Cadrach laughed shortly. "A question for the ages.
He was a man who came out of the north beyond
Elvritshalla, from the land of the Black Rimmersmen who
live below Stormspike, and presented himself to Fingil,
King of Rimmersgard. He was no court conjuror, but it. is
said that he gave Fingil the power that enabled him to
conquer half of Osten Ard. That power may have been
wisdom, for Nisses knew the facts of things that no one
else had even dreamed existed. After Asu'a was con-
quered and Fingil died at last, Nisses served Fingil's son
Hjeldin. It was during those years that he wrote his
book—a book that contained part of the dreadful knowl-
edge he had brought with him when he appeared in a
murderous snowstorm outside Fingil's gates. He and
Hjeldin both died in Asu'a—the young king by throwing
himself out the window of the tower that bears his name.
Nisses was found dead in the room from which Hjeldin
had leapt, with no mark upon him. There was a smile on
his face; the book was clutched in his hands."

Miriamele shuddered. 'That book. They spoke of it at
Naglimund, Jarnauga said that it supposedly tells of the
Storm King's coming and other things."

"Ah, Jarnauga," Cadrach said sadly. "How he would
have loved to see it! But I never showed it to him, nor to
any of the Scrollbearers."

"But why? If you had it, even a copy, why didn't you
show it to Morgenes and the others? I thought that was
just the sort of thing that your League was for."

"Perhaps. But by the time I had finished reading it, I
was no longer a Scrollbearer. I knew it in my heart. From
the moment I turned the last page I gave up the love of
learning for the love of oblivion—the two cannot live to-
gether. Even before I found Nisses' book, I had gone far
down the wrong paths, learning things that no man should
learn who wishes to sleep well at night. And I was jealous
of my fellow Scrollbearers, Miriamele, jealous of their
simple happiness with their studies, angry with their calm
assurance that all that could be examined could be under-

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER

297

stood. They were so certain that if they could look closely
enough at the nature of the world they could divine all its
purposes ... but / had something they did not, a book the
mere reading of which would not only prove to them
things I had already suggested, but would crumble the pil-
lars of their understanding. I was full of rage, Miriamele,
but I was also full of despair." He paused, the pain clear
in his voice. "The world is different once Nisses has ex-
plained it. It is as though the pages of his book were
dipped in some slow poison that kills the spirit. I touched
them all."

"It sounds horrible." Miriamele remembered the image
she had seen in one of Dinivan's books, a horned giant
with red eyes. She had seen that image since, in many
troubling dreams. Could it be better not to know some
things, to be blind to certain pictures and ideas?

"Horrible indeed, but only because it reflected the true
terror that lurked beneath the waking world, the shadows
which are the obverse image of sunlight. Still, even such
a powerful thing as Nisses' book eventually became noth-
ing more to me than another instrument of forgetting:

when I had read it so many times that it made me sick
even to stare at it, I began to'sell its pages off, one by
one."

"Elysia, Mother of Mercy! Who would buy such a
thing?"

Cadrach chortled harshly. "Even those who were sure it
was a deft forgery stumbled over themselves in their haste
to take a single page from my hands. A banned book has
a powerful fascination, young one, but a truly evil book—
and there are not many—draws the curious as honey lures
flies." His laughter grew for a moment, then was choked
off in what sounded like a sob, "Sweet Usires, I wish that
I had burned it!"

"But what about Pryrates?" she prodded. "Did you sell
pages to him?"

"Never!" Cadrach almost shouted. "Even then, I knew
he was a demon. He was forced out of the League long
before my own downfall, and every one of us knew what
a danger he was!" He recovered his composure. "No, I

298 Tad Williams

suspect that he merely frequented the same peddlers of
antiquities that I did—it is a rather small community, you
know—and that some scraps made their way into his
hands. He is tremendously learned in dark matters. Prin-
cess, particularly the most dangerous areas of the Art. It
was not difficult, I'm sure, for him to discover who had
possessed the powerful thing from which those pages
came- Neither was it hard for him to find me, despite the
fact that I had sunk myself as deeply into shadows as I
could, bending all my own learning into making myself
unimportant to the point of invisibility. But, as I said, he
found me. He sent some of your father's own guardsmen
after me. You see, he had already become a counselor to
princes—or in your sire's case, kings-to-be."

Miriamele thought of the day she had first met
Pryrates. The red priest had come to her father's apart-
ments in Meremund, bringing Elias information about
events in Nabban. Young Miriamele had been having a
difficult time speaking to her father, struggling to think of
something she could tell him that might make him smile
even for a moment, as he often had in the days when she
was the light of his eye. Matters of state providing a use-
ful excuse for avoiding another uncomfortable conversa-
tion with his daughter, Elias had sent her away. Curious,
she had caught Pryrates' gaze on her way out the door.

Even as a young girl, Miriamele had become used to
the variety of different looks she inspired among her fa-
ther's courtiers—irritation from those who considered her
an impediment to their affairs, pity from those who recog-
nized her loneliness and confusion, honest calculation
from those who wondered who she might marry someday,
or whether she would grow into an attractive woman, or
whether she would be a pliable queen after her father's
death. But never until that moment had she been exam-
ined with anything like Pryrates' inhuman regard, a stare
cold as a plunge in ice water. There seemed not the slight-
est bit of human feeling in his black eyes: she had known
somehow that had she been flayed meat on a butcher's ta-
ble his expression would have been no different. At the
same time, he had seemed to see right into her and

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER

299

through her, as though her every thought were being
made to walk naked before him, squirming beneath his
inspection.-Aghast, she had turned from his terrible gaze
and fled down the corridor, inexplicably weeping. Be-
hind, she heard the dry buzz of the alchemist's voice as
he began to speak. She realized she meant no more to this
new intimate of her father's than would a fly—that he
would ignore her with never another thought, or crush her
without a qualm if it suited his purposes. To a girl raised
in the nurturing certainty of her own importance, an im-
portance that had even outlasted her father's love, it was
a horrifying realization.

Her father, for all his faults, had never been a monster
of that sort. Why, then, had he brought Pryrates into his
inner circle, so that eventually the devil-priest became his
closest and most trusted advisor? It was a deeply trou-
bling question, and one for which she had never discov-
ered an answer.

Now, in the gently pitching boat, she struggled to keep
her voice steady. 'Tell me what happened, Cadrach."

The monk plainly did not want to start- Miriamele
could hear his fingers scratching quietly against the
wooden seat, as though he searched for something in the
darkness. "They found me in the stable of an inn in south
Erchester," he said slowly, "sleeping in the muck. The
guardsmen dragged me out, then threw me in the back of
a wagon and we rode toward the Hayholt. It was during
the worst year of that terrible drought, and in the late af-
ternoon light everything was gold and brown, even the
trees stiff and dull as dried mud. I remember staring, my
head ringing like a church bell—I had been sleeping off
a long bout of drinking, of course—and wondering if the
same dryness that made my eyes and nose and mouth feel
as though they were packed with dust had somehow
leached away all the colors of the world as well.

"The soldiers, I'm sure, thought I was nothing but an-
other criminal, and one not fated for a long life beyond
that afternoon. They talked as though I were already
dead, complaining about the onerous duty of having to
carry out and bury a corpse as fetid and unwashed as

300 Tad Williams

mine. A guardsman even said he would demand an extra
hour's pay for the unpleasant labor. One of his compan-
ions smirked and said: 'From Pryrates?'. The braggart fell
silent. Some of the other soldiers laughed at his discom-
fort, but their voices were forced, as though the mere
thought of demanding anything from the red priest was
enough to spoil the day. This was the first time I had any
inkling of where I was going, and I knew it to be a great
deal worse than simply being hung as a thief or a
traitor—both of which I was. I tried to throw myself out
of the cart, but was quickly pulled back in again. 'Ho,'
one of them said, 'he knows the name!'

" 'Please,* I begged, 'do not take me to that man. If
there is Aedonite mercy in you, do anything else with me
you like, but do not give me to the priest.' The soldier
who had last spoken stared at me, and I think there might
have been some pity in his hard eyes, but he said; 'And
bring his anger down on us? Leave our children father-
less? No. Bear up, and face it like a man.'

"I wept all the way to the Nearulagh Gate.

"The cart stopped at the iron-banded front door of
Hjeldin's Tower and I was dragged inside, too weak with
despair to resist—not that my wasted body would have
served me for much against four armed Erkynguards. I
was half-carried through the anteroom, then up what
seemed like a million steps. At the top, two great oaken
doors swung open. I was shoved through like a sack of
meal and fell to my knees on the hard flags of a cluttered
chamber.

"The first thing I thought. Princess, was that I had tum-
bled somehow into a lake of blood. The entire room was
scarlet, every niche and cranny; my very hands held be-
fore my face had changed their color as well. I looked up
in horror to the tall windows. Every one was fitted from
top to bottom with panes of bright red glass; the setting
sun streamed through them, dazzling the eye, as though
each window were a great ruby. The red light stripped ev-
erything inside the room of color, just as evening does.
There seemed no shades but black and red. There were ta-
bles and tall, leaning shelves, none of which touched the

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER

301

chamber's single curving outer wall, but instead were
clustered toward the middle of the room. Every surface
was draped in books and scrolls and ... and other things,
many of which I could not bear to look at for long. The
priest has a terrible curiosity. There is nothing he will not
do to discover the truth about something—or such truths
as are important to him. Many of the subjects of his in-
quiries, mostly animals, were locked in cages stacked
haphazardly among the books; most of them were still
alive, although it would have been better for them if they
had not been. Considering the chaos in the center of the
room, the wall was curiously uncluttered, naked except
for certain painted symbols.

" 'Ah,* a voice said. 'Greetings, fellow Scrollbearer.' It
was Pryrates, of course, seated on a narrow, high-backed
chair at the center of this strange nest. 'I trust your jour-
ney was a comfortable one?'

" 'Let us not bandy words,' I said- With despair had
come a certain resignation. 'You are a Scrollbearer no
longer, Pryrates, nor am I. What do you want?'

"He grinned. He was in no mood to speed what was,
for him, an enjoyable diversion. *0nce a member of the
League, always a member, I should think,' he chuckled.
'For are we not both still intimately concerned with old
things, old writings ... old books?'

"When he said this last, my heart stumbled in my
chest. At first I had thought he wanted only to torment
me, to take revenge for his ousting from the League—
although others were more responsible for that than I
was; I had already begun my slide into darkness when he
was forced out. Now I realized he wanted something
quite different. He plainly desired some book he thought
I had—and I had little doubt as to which book that might
be-

"I dueled with him for part of an hour, using words as
a swordsman does his blade, and for a while held my
own—the last thing a drunkard loses, you see, is his cun-
ning: it outlasts his soul by a long season—but we both
knew that I would give in at the end. I was tired, you see,
very tired and sick. As we spoke, two men came into the

302 Tad Williams

room. These were not more Erkynguardsmen, but rather
somber-robed, shaven-headed men who had the dark-
haired, dark-skinned look of southern islanders. They nei-
ther of them spoke—perhaps they were mutes—but
nevertheless, their purpose was clear: they would hold me
so that Pryrates might have his hands and attention unim-
peded as he moved on to more strenuous means of nego-
tiation. When the two grabbed my arms and dragged me
close to the priest's chair, I gave up. It was not the pain
I feared, Miriamele, or even the other soul-horrors that he
could have inflicted. I swear that to you, although why it
should matter I don't know. Rather, I simply no longer
cared. Let him have what he would of me, I thought. Let
him do what he pleased with it. It was not, I told myself,
as though this sin-blackened world might receive unde-
served punishment ... for I had dwelt in the depths so
long that I saw nothing left that was good but nothingness
itself.

" 'You have been making free with pages from a cer-
tain old volume, Padreic,' he said. 'Or do I remember that
you call yourself something different now? No matter. I
need that book. If you tell me where you keep it hidden,
you will walk free into the evening air.' He gestured to
the world beyond the scarlet windows. 'If not ...' He
pointed at certain objects that were lying on the table
close by his hand, objects already filthy with hair and
blood.

" *I do not have it anymore,' I told him. That was the
truth. I had sold the remaining few pages a fortnight
earlier: I had been sleeping off the last of the proceeds in
that noisome stable.

"He said: 'I do not believe you, little man,' then his
servants did something to me until I screamed. When I
still could not tell him where it was, he began to take a
more active hand himself, stopping only when I could
shriek no longer and my voice was a cracked whisper.
'Hmm,' he said, scratching his chin as though aping Doc-
tor Morgenes, who would often muse that way over a del-
icate translation. 'Perhaps I must believe you after all. I
find it hard to think that offal such as you would stay si-

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

303

lent on purely moral grounds. Tell me who you sold it
to—all the pieces.'

"Damning myself silently for the murder of these var-
ious merchants—for Pryrates, I knew, would have them
killed and their wares confiscated without a moment's
hesitation—I told him all the names I could remember.
When I hesitated, I was helped along by ... by ... his
servants...."

Cadrach suddenly broke into deep, chesty sobs.
Miriamele heard him trying to repress them, then he
broke off in a fit of coughing. She leaned forward and
caught his cold hand, squeezing hard to let him know that
she was there. After a while, his breathing became more
regular.

"I am sorry. Princess," he rasped. "I do not like to
think of it."

There were tears in Miriamele's eyes as well. "It's my
fault. I should never have made you talk about it. Let's
stop, and you can sleep."

"No." She could feel him shaking. "No, I have begun
it. I will not sleep well in any case. Perhaps it will help
me if I finish the tale." He reached out and patted her
head. "I thought he had gotten everything from me he
could wish, but I was wrong. 'What if these gentlemen no
longer have the pieces I need, Padreic?' he asked. Ah,
gods, there is nothing fouler than that priest's smile! 'I
think you should tell me what you remember—there is
still some wit left in that wine-soaked head, is there not?
Come, recite for me, little acolyte.'

"And tell him I did, every bit and every line that I
could recall, the order as tumbled as you would expect
from a creature as wretched as I was. He seemed most in-
terested in Nisses' cryptic words on death, especially
something termed 'speaking through the veil,' which I
gathered to be the rituals that allow one to reach what
Nisses had called 'songs of the upper air'—that is, the
thoughts of those who are somehow beyond mortality,
both the dead and the never-living. I disgorged it all, ach-
ing to please, with Pryrates sitting there nodding, nod-
ding, his shiny head gleaming in the strange light.

304

Tad Williams

"Somehow, in the middle of this terrible experience, I
noticed something strange. It took a while, as you can
imagine, but since I had begun to talk freely about my
memories of Nisses' book I had been left unharmed—one
of the unspeaking servitors even gave me a cup of water
so that I could speak more clearly. While I rattled on, an-
swering Pryrates' every question as eagerly as a child/at
its first holy mansa, I noticed something disturbing about
the way the light was moving across the room. At first, in
my weary, pained state, I was convinced that somehow
Pryrates had managed to make the sun roll backward in
its tracks, for the light that should have been passing from
east to west across the bloody windows was slipping the
other way instead. I mused on this—at such times, it is
good to have something to think about other than what is
happening to you—and realized at last that the laws of
heaven had not been countermanded after all- Rather, it
was the tower itself, or at least the topmost section where
we were, that was spinning slowly sunward, a little faster
than the passage of the sun itself—so slowly that, when
combined with the sameness of the tower's uppermost
story, I would guess that none have ever marked it from
the outside.

"So that was why nothing was allowed to lean against
the stones of these chamber walls, I thought' Even in the
extremity of my pain and terror, I marveled at the huge
gears and wheels that must be moving silently behind the
mortar or below my feet. Such things were once a joy of
mine—I spent many hours of my youth studying the me-
chanical laws of the spinning globe and the heavens- And,
the gods help me, it gave me something to think about be-
side what had been done to me, and what I, in turn, was
doing to my fellow men.

"Looking around the circular room as I continued my
prattling, I saw for the first time the subtle marks incised
in the red window glass, and how those marks, thrown
forward as faint lines of darker red, crossed over the
strange symbols marked all around on the tower's interior
wall. I could think of no other explanation but that
Pryrates had turned the top of Hjeldin's Tower into some

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

305

kind of vast water clock, a time-keeping device of fantas-
tic size and intricacy. I have pondered and pondered, but
to this day I still can think of nothing else that fits the
facts as well. The black arts in which Pryrates has be-
come involved, I suppose, have made hourglass and
sundial unhelpfully imprecise."

Miriamele let him pause for a long time. "So what hap-
pened, Cadrach?"

Cadrach still hesitated. When he resumed, he spoke a
little more swiftly, as though this part was even more
troubling man what had preceded it. "After I had finished
telling Pryrates all I knew, he sat thinking for the time it
took the last sliver of the sun to drop out one of the win-
dows and appear at the edge of the next. Then he stood,
waved a hand, and one of his servants stepped up behind
me. Something struck me on the head and I knew no
more. I woke up lying in a thicket in the Kynslagh, my
torn clothes stained with the fluids of my own body. I be-
lieve they thought me dead. Certainly Pryrates did not be-
lieve me worth any more effort, not even the effort to kill
me properly." Cadrach stopped to take a deep breath.

"You would think that I would have been deliriously
happy to be alive, to have survived when I did not expect
to, but all I could do was crawl deeper into the under-
brush and wait for death. But those were warm, dry days;

I did not die. When I was enough recovered, I made my
way down into Erchester. There I stole some clothing and
some food. I even bathed in the Kynslagh, so that I could
go to into the places where wine was sold." The monk
groaned. "But I could not leave the town, although I
burned to. The sight of Hjeldin's Tower looming up above
the Hayholt's outwall terrified me, but still I could not
flee: I felt as though Pryrates had pulled out a part of my
soul to keep me tethered, as though he could call me back
any time he wished and I would go. This despite the fact
that he clearly did not care if I was alive or dead. I re-
mained in the town, thieving, drinking, trying without
success to forget the terrible, treacherous thing I had
done. I have not forgotten it, of course—I will never for-
get it—-although I eventually grew strong enough to

306 Tad Williams

wrench myself free of the tower's shadow and flee
Erchester." He looked for a moment as though he might
say something more, but shuddered and fell silent.

Miriamele again clutched the monk's hand, which had
been scraping fretfully at the wooden bench. Somewhere
to the south a seagull raised its lonely cry. "But you can't
blame yourself, Cadrach. That is foolish. Anyone would
have done what you did."

"No, Princess," he murmured sadly. "Some would not
have. Some would have died before telling such dreadful
secrets And more importantly, others would not have
given up a treasure in the first place—especially a dan-
gerous treasure like Nisses' book—for the price of a few
jugs of wine. I had a sacred trust. That is what the League
of the Scroll is meant for, Miriamele—to preserve knowl-
edge, and also to preserve Osten Ard from those like
Pryrates who would use the old knowledge for power
over others. I failed on both those counts. And the League
was also meant to watch for the return of Ineluki, the
Storm King. There I failed most miserably of all, for it
seems clear to me that I gave Pryrates the means of find-
ing that terrible spirit and interesting it in humankind
once more—and all this evil I accomplished simply so 1
could guzzle wine, so I could make my already dim brain
a little darker."

"But why did Pryrates want to know all that? Why was
he so interested in death?"

"I don't know." Cadrach was weary. "His is a mind
that has gone rotten like a piece of old fruit—who knows
what strange prodigies will hatch from such a thing?"

Angry, Miriamele squeezed his hand. "That is no an-
swer."

Cadrach sat up a little straighten "I'm sorry, my lady,
but I have no answers. The only thing I can say is that
from the questions Pryrates asked me, I do not think that
he was seeking to contact the Storm King—not at first.
No, he had some other interest in, as he called it, 'speak-
ing through the veil/ And I think that when he began to
explore in those lightless regions, he was noticed. Most
living mortals who are discovered there are destroyed or

TO   GREEN   ANOEL   TOWER

307

made mad, but my guess is that Pryrates was recognized
as i possible tool for a vengeful Ineluki. From what you
and others have told me, he has been a very useful tool
indeed."

Miriamele, chilled by the night breeze, crouched lower.
Something in what Cadrach had just said tugged at her
mind, asking to be examined. "I want to think," she said.

"If I have disgusted you, my lady, it is only reason-
able." He seemed very distant. "I have grown unutterably
disgusted with myself."

"Don't be an idiot." Impulsively, she lifted his cold
hand and pressed it against her cheek. Startled, he left it
there for a moment before pulling it back again. "You
have made mistakes, Cadrach. So have I, so have many
others." She yawned. "Now we need to sleep, so we can
get up in the morning and start rowing again." She
crawled past him toward the boat's makeshift cabin.

"My lady?" the monk said, surprise evident in his
voice, but she did not say anything more.

Some time later, as Miriamele was drifting toward
sleep, she heard him crawl in beneath the oilcloth shelter.
He curled up near her feet, but his breathing stayed quiet,
as though he, too, were thinking. Soon, the gentle smack
of the waves and the rocking of the anchored boat pulled
her down into dreams.

10

Riders of tfte Dawn

A

Despite trie cft-iCC morning mists that covered
Sesuad'ra like a gray cloak, New Gadrinsett was in al-
most a festival mood. The troop of trolls, led back across
the slowly freezing lake by Binabik and Simon, were a
new and pleasant wonder in a year whose other oddities
had been almost entirely bad. As Simon and his small
friends made their way up the last winding stretch of the
old Sithi road, a rush of chattering children who had
legged out ahead of their parents and older siblings began
to gather around them. The mountain rams, hardened by
the din of Qanuc villages, did not break stride. Some of
the smaller children were lifted up by rough brown hands
and dropped into the saddle to ride with troll herders and
huntresses. One little boy, not expecting such a sudden
and intimate introduction to the newcomers, broke into
loud crying. Grinning worriedly through his sparse beard,
the troll-man who had picked him up held the struggling
lad gently but firmly in place lest he fall and be hurt
among the hom-bumping rams. The boy's wailing out-
stripped even the shouting of the other children and the
unrestrained banging and tootling of Qanuc marching mu-
sic.

Binabik had told Josua of his folk's arrival before tak-
ing Simon down to the forest; in turn, the prince had done
his best to see that a suitable welcome was prepared. The
rams were taken to warm cavern stables where they
cropped hay contentedly beside New Gadrinsett's horses,
then Sisqi and the rest of her troll contingent marched to

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

309

the wind-bumished hulk of Leavetaking House, still sur-
rounded by a flock of gaping settlers. Sesuad'ra's meager
stores were combined with the traveling food of the trolls
and a modest meal was shared. There were now enough
citizens in New Gadrinsett that the addition of five score
of even such diminutive men and women filled the cav-
ernous Sithi hall to its limits, but the closeness made it a
warmer place. There was little food, but the company was
exotically exciting.

_ Sangfugol stood, dressed in his best—if perhaps a little
th'readbare—doublet and hose, and presented a few favor-
ite old songs. The trolls applauded by smacking their
boots with the palms of their hands, a custom that much
amused the citizens of New Gadrinsett. A man and
woman of the Qanuc, urged on by their fellows, next pre-
sented an acrobatic dance that employed two of their
hooked sheep-herder's spears and involved much leaping
and tumbling. Most of the people of New Gadrinsett,
even those who had entered the hall suspicious of these
small strangers, found themselves warming to the new-
comers. Only among those few settlers originally from
Rimmersgard did there seem to be any lingering ill-
feeling: the longtime enmity of trolls and Rimmersmen
would not be banished by a single banquet and a little
dancing and singing.

Simon sat and watched proudly. He did not drink, since
the blood was still thudding uncomfortably in his head
from the previous night's kangkang, but he felt as plea-
surably giddy as if he had just downed a skinful. All
Sesuad'ra's defenders were grateful for the arrival of new
allies—any allies. The trolls were small, but Simon re-
membered from Sikkihoq what brave lighters they were.
There was still little chance that Josua's folk would be
able to hold off Fengbald, but at least the odds were bet-
ter than they had been the day before. Best of all, how-
ever, Sisqi had solemnly asked Simon to fight alongside
the trolls- From what he could gather, they had never
asked another Utku, which made it an honor indeed. The
Qanuc thought very highly of his bravery, she told him,
and the loyalty he had shown to Binabik.

3io

Tad Williams

Simon could not help gloating a little, although he had
decided to keep it to himself for the time being. Still, he
could not keep from grinning cheerfully down the long ta-
ble at anyone whose eye he caught.

When Jeremias appeared, Simon forced him to sit
down beside him. In the company of the prince and the
other "high folk," as Jeremias called them, the onetmie
chandler's boy was still generally more comfortable wait-
ing on Simon as his body-servant—something that Simon
did not find comfortable at all.

"It's not right," Jeremias grunted, staring down at the
cup that Simon had placed in front of him. "I'm your
squire, Simon. I shouldn't be sitting at the prince's table.
1 should be filling your cup."

"Nonsense." Simon waved his hand airily. "That's not
the way things work here. Besides, if you had gotten out
of the castle when I did, it would have been you that had
the adventures, and me who wound up in the cellar with

Inch...."

"Don't say that!" Jeremias gasped, eyes full of sudden
fright. "You don't know... '" He struggled to control
himself. "No, Simon, don't even say it—you'll bring bad
luck, make it come true!" His expression changed, the
fear gradually giving way to a look of wistfulness. "Be-
sides, you're wrong. Such things wouldn't have happened
to me, Simon—the dragon, the fairy-folk, any of that. If
you can't see that you're special, then ..." He took a
deep breath, "... then you're just being stupid."

This kind of talk made Simon even more uncomforta-
ble. "Special or stupid, make up your mind," he growled.

Jeremias stared at him as if sensing his thought. He
seemed to consider pursuing the subject, but after some
moments his face twisted into a mocking smile instead.
"Hmm. 'Specially stupid* would be about right, now that

you mention it."

Relieved to find himself back on safer footing, Simon
dipped his fingers in his wine cup and flicked droplets
onto Jeremias' pale face, making his friend splutter. "And
you, sirrah, are no better. I have anointed thee, and now
I dub thee 'Sir Stupidly Special.'" He gravely flicked a

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER           311

few more drops. Jeremias snarled and swiped at the cup,
spilling the dregs onto Simon's shirt, then they began to
arm-wrestle, laughing and swatting back and forth with
their free hands like sportive bear cubs.

"Specially Stupid!"

"Stupidly Special!"

The contest, although still good-natured, soon became
a little more heated; those guests seated closest to the
combatants moved back to give them room. Prince Josua,
despite certain reservations, found it hard to maintain his
look of detached propriety. Lady Vorzheva laughed out-
right.

The trolls, whose state occasions took place in the awe-
some vastness of.Chidsik ub Lingit and never included
anything as trivial as two friends wrestling and rubbing
wine in each other's hair, watched the proceedings with
grave interest. Several wondered aloud if any particular
augury or prophesy was determined by the result of this
contest, others whether it would be insulting to their
hosts' religious beliefs if they made a few quiet wagers
on who might be the winner. Regarding this last, a quiet
consensus developed that what was not noticed could not
offend; the odds changed several-times as one or the other
of the combatants seemed on the brink of crushing defeat.

As long moments passed and neither warrior showed
any sign of surrender, the interest of the trolls grew. For
such a thing to go on so long at a celebratory banquet in
the cavern of these lowlanders' Herder and Huntress—
well, clearly, the more cosmopolitan of the Qanuc folk
explained, it must be more than a mere contest. Rather,
they told their fellows, it was obviously a very compli-
cated sort of dance that solicited luck and strength from
the gods for the upcoming battle. No, others said, it was
likely nothing more intricate than a combat for the right
to mate- Rams did it, so why not lowlanders?

When Simon and Jeremias realized that almost every-
one in the room was watching them, the arm-wrestling
match suddenly came to a halt. The two embarrassed con-
testants, red-faced and sweating, straightened their chairs
and addressed themselves to their food, not daring to look

312

Tad Williams

up at any of the other guests. The trolls whispered sadly.
What a shame it was that neither Sisqi nor Binabik had
been present to translate their many questions about the
odd ritual. A chance for a greater appreciation of Utku
customs had been lost, at least for the time being.

Outside Leavetaking Hall, Binabik and his betrothed
stood ankle-deep in the snow that blanketed the crum-
bling tiles of the Fire Garden. The cold bothered them not
at all—late spring in Yiqanuc could be far worse, and
they had not been alone together in a long time.

The hooded pair stood close, face to face, warming
each other's cheeks with their breath. Binabik reached up
a gentle hand and brushed a melting particle of sleet from
Sisqi's cheek.

"You are even more beautiful," he said. "/ had thought
that my loneliness was playing tricks on me, but you are
more lovely even than I remembered."

Sisqi laughed and pulled him close. "Flattery, Singing
Man, flattery. Have you been practicing on these huge
lowland women? Be careful, one of them might take of-
fense and smash you flat."

Binabik made a mock-frown. "/ see no one else but
you, Sisqinanamook, nor have I since the first time your
eyes opened before mine."

She wrapped her arms about his chest and squeezed as
tightly as she could. When she let him go, she turned and
began walking once more. Binabik fell into step beside

her.

"Your news was welcome," he said. "I have worried for
our people since the day I left Blue Mud Lake."

Sisqi shrugged. "We will get on. Sedda's children al-
ways do. Still, it was like taking a stone from the foot of
an angry ram to convince my parents to let me bring even
this small mustering of our folk."

"The Herder and Huntress may be reconciled to the
truth of what Ookequk wrote," said Binabik, "but just be-
cause an unpleasant thing is known to be true does not
make it more palatable. Still, Josua and the others are
truly grateful—every arm, every eye, will help. The

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER           313

Herder and Huntress have done a good thing, however
unwillingly." He paused. "And you have done a good
thing also. I thank you for your kindness to Simon."

Sisqi looked at him, puzzled. "What do you mean?"

"Asking him to join the Qanuc troop. That meant much
to him."

She smiled. "It was no favor, beloved. It is a deserved
honor, and our choice—and not just mine, Binabik, but
that of the folk who came with me."

Binabik stared at her, surprised. "But they do not know
him!"

"Some do. A few of those who survived our march
down Sikkihoq are among this hundred. You saw Snenneq,
surely? And those who were at Sikkihoq brought back sto-
nes to the rest. Your young friend has made a strong im-
pression on our folk, beloved."

"Young Simon." Binabik thought about this for a mo-
ment. "/(is strange to think it, but I know you speak the
truth."

"He has grown much, your friend, even since we parted
at the lake. Surely you have seen that?"

"I know you do not mean in size—he has always been
large, even for one of his folk:"

Sisqi laughed and squeezed him again. "No, of course
not. I mean that since he came down from our mountains,
he looks like one who has taken the Walk of Man-
hood. "

"The lowlanders do not do as we do, my love—but f
think that the whole of the last year has been, in a way,
his manhood-walk. And I do not think it is over yet."
Binabik shook his head, then folded her hand in his. "But
still. I have done Simon a disservice by guessing you had
given this as a kindness. He is young and he is changing
quickly. I am so close to him, perhaps I do not see the
changes as clearly as you do."

"You see more clearly than any of us, Binbiniqegabenik.
That is why I love you—and that is also why no harm must
come to you. I gave my parents no rest until I could be at
your side with a troop of your own folk."

"Ah, Sisqi," he said wistfully, "a thousand, thousand of

3'4

Tad Williams

the stoutest trolls could not keep us safe in these terrible
times—but better than a million spears is having you

close to me again."

"Flattery again," she laughed. "But so wonderfully

spoken."

Arm in arm, they walked through the snow.

Provisions were scarce, but wood was not: inside
Leavetaking House, the fire had been banked high with
logs so that the smoke blackened the ceiling. Normally,
Simon would have been upset by such a smirching of the
Sithi's sacred place, but tonight he saw it as no more than
what was needed—a brave and happy gesture in a time
scant of hope. He looked toward the circle of people that
had formed around the blaze once supper was finished.

Most of the settlers had wandered back to their tents
and sleeping caves, tired after a long day and an unex-
pected celebration. Some of the trolls had also gone off,
a few to look in on the rams—for what, they had asked
themselves, did lowlanders truly know about sheep?—and
others to bed down in the caverns the prince's folk had
prepared for them. Binabik and Sisqi were now sitting at
the high table with the prince, talking quietly, their faces
far more serious than those of the rest of the revelers,
who were passing a few precious wineskins around the
fire-circle. Simon debated for a moment, then headed to-
ward the group gathered near the fire.

Lady Vorzheva had left the prince's table and was
moving toward the door—Duchess Outrun was walking
beside her, delicately holding the Thrithings-woman's el-
bow like a mother ready to restrain an impulsive child—
but when Vorzheva saw Simon, she paused. "There you
are," she said, and beckoned. The child growing in her
was beginning to show, a bulge at her middle.

"My lady. Duchess." He wondered if he should bow to
them, then remembered that they had both seen him
thumping Jeremias earlier. He blushed and bent hastily to

hide his face.

Vorzheva sounded as though she was smiling. "Prince

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

315

Josua says that these trolls are your sworn allies,
Simon—or should I call you Sir Seoman?"

It was getting worse and worse. His cheeks felt woe-
fully hot. "Please, my lady, just Simon." He sneaked a
look, then slowly straightened.

Duchess Outrun chuckled. "Heaven help you, lad, don't
get so worried. Let him go and join the others, Vorzheva—
he's a young man and wants to stay up late, drinking and
bragging."

Vorzheva looked at her sharply for a moment, then her
expression softened. "I wanted only to tell him ..." She
turned to Simon. "I wanted only to tell you that I wish I
knew more about you. I had thought our lives since going
from Naglimund were strange, but when Josua tells me
things you have seen ..." She laughed again, a little
sadly, and spread her long fingers on her stomach. "But it
is good of you to bring help to us. I have never seen any-
thing like these trolls!"

"You have known ... mmmmhh ... Binabik for a long
time," Outrun said, yawning behind her hand.

"Yes, but seeing one small person is different than see-
ing many, so many." Vorzheva turned to Simon as if for
help. "Do you understand?"

"I do. Lady Vorzheva." He grinned, remembering.
"The first time I saw the city where Binabik's people
live—hundreds of caves in the mountainside, and swing-
ing rope bridges, and more trolls than you can imagine,
young and old—yes, it was far different than knowing
only Binabik."

"Just so." Vorzheva nodded. "Well, again I thank you.
Perhaps one day you will come to tell me more of your
travels. I am sick now some days, and Josua worries so
much for me when I go out and walk around—" she
smiled again, but there was a touch of bitterness in it,
"—so it is good to have company."

"Of course. Lady. I would be honored."

Outrun tugged at Vorzheva's sleeve. "Come along now,
Vorzheva. Let the young man go and talk to his friends."

"Yes. Well, good night to you, Simon."

"Ladies." He bowed again as they left, a little more

3i6

Tad Williams

gracefully this time. Apparently it was something that im-
proved with practice-

Sangfugol glanced up as Simon reached the fire. The
harper looked tired. Old Towser was seated beside him,
carrying on one half of a rambling argument—an argu-
ment that Sangfugol seemed to have abandoned a while

earlier.

"There you are," said the harper. "Sit down- Have

some wine." He offered a skin.

Simon took a swallow just to be friendly. "I liked that
song you did tonight—the one about the bear."

"The Osgal tune? It is a good one. I remembered you
saying that they have bears up in the trollish country, so
I thought they would like it."

Simon did not have the heart to reveal that only one of
their hundred new guests spoke even a single word of
Westerling—that the harper could have sung about
swamp fowl for all they would have noticed. However,
although the subject matter had been a complete mystery,
the Qanuc had enjoyed the song's energetic choruses and
Sangfugol's goggling facial expressions. "They certainly
clapped for it," Simon said. "I thought the roof would
come down."

"Smacked on their boots—did you see?" Thinking
back on such a triumph, Sangfugol visibly lifted himself
straighter. He might be the only harper ever to be ap-
plauded by troll feet—such a thing was not said even of

the legendary Eoin-ec-Cluias.

"Boots?" Towser leaned forward and clutched at Sang-
fugol's knee. "And who taught 'em to wear boots at all,
that's what I'd like to know. Mountain savages don't wear

boots."

Simon started to reply, but Sangfugol shook his head,
irritated. "You're talking nonsense again, Towser. You
don't know the first thing about trolls."

Abashed, the jester looked around, the lump in his
throat bobbing. "I just thought it strange that ..." He
looked at Simon. "And you know them, son? These little
people?"

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER

317

"I do. Binabik is my friend—you've seen him here of-
ten, haven't you?"

"So I have, so I have." Towser nodded, but his watery
eyes were vague; Simon was not sure that he truly did re-
member.

"Well, after we left Naglimund and went to the dragon-
mountain," Simon said carefully, "—the mountain that
you helped us find, Towser, with your memories about the
sword Thorn—after we were on the mountain, we went to
the place where Binabik's people live and met their king
and queen. And now they have sent these folks to be our
allies."

"Ah, very kind. That's very kind." Towser squinted
suspiciously across the fire at the nearest group of trolls,
half a dozen men who were laughing and throwing dice in
the damp sawdust. The aged jester looked up, brighten-
ing. "And they're here because of what I said!"

Simon hesitated, then said: "In a way, yes. That's true."

"Hah!" Towser grinned, exposing the stumps of his few
remaining teeth. He looked truly happy. "I told Joshua
and all those others about the sword, didn't I? About both
swords." He looked at the trolls again. "What are they
doing?"

"Throwing dice." '

"Since I brought 'em here, I should show 'em how a
real game is played. I should teach 'em Bull's Horn."
Towser rose and stumbled a few paces to where the trolls
were gambling, then flopped himself down cross-legged
in their midst and began to try to explain the playing of
Bull's Horn. The trolls chortled at his obvious drunken-
ness, but also seemed to be enjoying his visit. Soon the
jester and the newcomers were engaged in a hilarious
dumb show as Towser, already befuddled by drink and
the excitement of the evening, tried to explain the more
delicate nuances of the dice game to a group of tiny
mountain men who could not understand his words.

Laughing, Simon turned back to Sangfugol. "That will
probably keep him occupied for a few hours, at least."

Sangfugol made a sour face. "I wish I'd thought of that

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myself. I would have sent him over to pester them a long

time ago,"

"You don't have to be Towser's keeper. I'm sure that if
you told Josua how much you dislike the task, he'd ask

someone else to do it."

The harper shook his head. "It's not that simple."
"Tell me." From close up, Simon could see dark grit in
the shallow creases around Sangfugol's eyes, a smudge
on his forehead beneath his curly brown hair. The harper
seemed to have lost more than a little of his fastidious-
ness, but Simon was not sure that this was a good thing:

an unkempt Sanfugol seemed a blow against nature, like
a slovenly Rachel or a clumsy Jiriki.

"Towser was a good man, Simon." The harper's words
came out slowly, grudgingly* "No, that is not fair. He is
a good man still, I suppose, but these days he is mostly
old and foolish—and drunk whenever he can be. He is not
wicked, he is just tiresome. But when I first began my
craft, he took the time to help me although he owed me
nothing. It was all from kindness. He taught me songs and
tunings I did not know, helped me leam to use my voice
properly so that it would not fail me in time of need."
Sangfugol shrugged. "How can I turn away from him just

because he wearies me?"

The voices of the trolls nearby had risen, but what
seemed for a moment the beginning of an argument was
instead the swelling of a song, a guttural and jerky chant;

the melody was strange as could be, but the humor so ev-
ident even in an unfamiliar tongue that Towser, in the
midst of the singers, giggled and clapped his hands.

"Look at him," Sangfugol said with a touch of bemuse-
ment. "He is like a child—and so may we all be. some-
day. How can I hate him, any more than I would hate an
infant that did not know what it did?"

"But he seems to drive you mad!"

The harper snorted- "And do children not sometimes
drive parents mad? But someday, the parents become as
children themselves and are revenged on their sons and
daughters, for then it is the old parents who cry and spit
and bum themselves at the cookfire, and it is their chil-

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER

319

dren who must suffer." There was little mirth in his laugh.
*T thought myself well away from my own mother when
I went off to make my fortune. Now, see what I have in-
herited for my unfaithfulness." He gestured at Towser,
who, with head thrown back, was singing along with the
trolls, baying wordlessly and tunelessly as a dog beneath
a harvest moon.

The smile that this sight engendered faded quickly
from Simon's face. At least Sangfugol and others had a
choice about staying or not staying with parents. It was
different for orphans.

"Then there is the other side." Sangfugol turned to look
at Josua, who was still in deep conversation with the
Qanuc- "There are those who, even when their parents
die, still cannot get free of them." The gaze he leveled at
his prince was full of love and, surprisingly, anger.
"Sometimes he seems to be almost afraid to move, for
fear he might have to step across the shadow of old King
John's memory."

Simon stared at Josua's long, troubled face. "He wor-
ries so much."

"Yes, even when there is no-use in it." As Sangfugol
spoke, Towser came swaggering back. The kangkang of
his Qanuc dicing partners seemed to have lifted the old
man to a newer and more alert stage of drunkenness.

"We are about to be attacked by Fengbald and a thou-
sand troops, Sangfugol," Simon growled. "That is cer-
tainly some reason for Josua to worry. Sometimes worry
is called 'planning,' you know."

The harper waved his hand in apology. "I know, and I
do not criticize him as a war-leader. If anyone can think
of a way of winning this fight, it will be our prince- But
I swear, Simon, I sometimes think that if he ever looked
down at his feet and noticed the ants and fleas he must
kill with every pace, he would never walk again. You can-
not be a leader—let alone a king—when every hurt done
to one of your people galls as though it happened to you.
Josua suffers too much, I think, ever to be happy on a
throne."

320 Tad Williams

Towser had been listening, his eyes bright and intent.
"He is his father's child, that's certain."

Sangfugol looked up, annoyed. "You are talking non-
sense again, old fellow. Prester John was the very oppo-
site, as everybody knows—as you should know better
than anybody!"

"Ah," Towser said solemnly, his face unexpectedly se-
rious. "Ah. Yes." After a moment's silence, when it
seemed he might say more, the jester turned abruptly and
walked away again.

Simon shrugged off the old man's strange remark.
"How can a good king not hurt when his people are in
pain, Sangfugol?" he asked. "Shouldn't he care?"

"Certainly he should. Aedon's Blood, yes!—otherwise
he'd be no better than Josua's mad brother. But when you
cut your finger, do you lay down and not move until it is
healed again? Or do you staunch the blood and get on
with what you have to do?"

Simon considered this. "You mean that Josua is like the
farmer in that old story—the one who bought the finest,
fattest pig at the fair, then couldn't bear to slaughter it, so
he and his family starved but the pig lived."

The harper laughed. "I suppose, yes. Although I am not
saying that Josua should let his people be butchered like
swine—just that sometimes bad things happen, no matter
how hard a kind prince tries to prevent it."

They sat staring into the fire as Simon thought about
what his friend had said. When Sangfugol at last decided
that Towser would be safe in the company of the Qanuc—
the old jester was laboriously teaching them ballads of
dubious propriety—the harper wandered off to sleep. Si-
mon sat and listened to the concert for a while until his
head began to hurt, then went to have a few words with
Binabik.

His troll friend was still talking with Josua, although
Sisqi was now practically asleep, her head propped on
Binabik's shoulder, her long-lashed eyes half-closed. She
smiled muzzily as Simon approached, but said nothing.
The two lovers and Josua had been joined by the burly
constable Freosel and a thin old man Simon did not rec-

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER

321

ognize. After a moment he realized that this must be
Helfgrim, the onetime Lord Mayor of Gadrinsett who had
fled from Fengbald's camp.

As he watched Helfgrim, Simon remembered Geloe's
doubts about him. He certainly looked anxious and unset-
tled as he spoke to the prince, as though at any moment
he might say the wrong thing and bring some terrible
punishment down on himself. Simon could not help won-
dering how far they should trust this twitchy old man, but
a moment later he chided himself for such callousness.
Who knew what torments poor old Helfgrim had suffered
that made him look the way he did? Hadn't Simon him-
self wandered like a wild animal in the woods after his
escape from the Hayholt? Who could have seen him then
and still thought him reliable?

"Ah, friend Simon." Binabik looked up. "I am glad to
see you. I am doing a thing for which your help will be
needed tomorrow."

Simon nodded to show his availability.

"In truth," Binabik said, "it is being two things. One is
that I must teach you some Qanuc, so that you can be
talking to my folk in battle."

"Of course." Simon was pleased that Binabik remem-
bered. It made it more real, to hear it spoken in the seri-
ous presence of Josua. "If I have the prince's leave to
fight with the Qanuc, of course." He looked at Josua.

The prince said: "Binabik's folk will help us most if
they can understand what we need from them. Their own
safety will also be best served that way. You have my
leave, Simon."

"Thank you. Highness. What else, Binabik?"

"We must also be collecting all the boats that belong to
the folk of New Gadrinsett." Binabik grinned. "There
must be two score of them all counted together."

"Boats? But the lake around Sesuad'ra is frozen. What
good will they do us?"

"Not the boats themselves will be doing good," said the
troll. "But parts of them will."

"Binabik has a plan for the defense of this place,"
Josua elaborated. He looked doubtful.

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"It is not just being a plan." Binabik was smiling again.
"Not just an idea that has landed on me like a stone. It is
a certain Qanuc way that I will show to you Utku—and
that is a great luckiness for you." He chuckled with self-
satisfaction.

"What is it?"

"I will tell you tomorrow as we are at our boat-hunting
task."

"One other thing, Simon," Josua said. "I know I have
spoken of it before, but I feel it is worth asking again. Do
you think there is any chance that your friends the Sithi
will come? This is their sacred place, is it not? Will they
not defend it?"

"I do not know, Josua. As I said, Jiriki seemed to think
that his people would need a great deal of convincing."

"A pity." Josua drew his fingers through his short-
cropped hair. "In truth, I fear we are just too few, even
with the arrival of these brave trolls. The aid of the Fair
Ones would be a great boon. Ha! Life is strange, is it not?
My father prided himself that he had driven the last of the
Sithi into hiding; now his son prays for them to come and
help defend the remnants of his father's kingdom."

Simon shook his head sadly. There was nothing to say.
The old Lord Mayor, who had listened silently to this ex-
change, now looked up at Simon, examining him closely.
Simon tried to see some hint of the old man's thoughts in
his watery eyes, but could make out nothing.

"Wake me up when it's time to go, Binabik," Simon
said at last. "Good night, all. Good night. Prince Josua."
He turned and walked toward the doorway. The singing of
the trolls and lowlanders around the fire had quieted, the
tunes grown slow and melancholy. The fire, dwindling,
set red light shimmering along the shadowy walls-

*

The late morning sky was almost empty of clouds. The
air was bitterly cold: Simon's breath clouded before his
face. He and Binabik had been practicing a few important
words in the Qanuc speech since first light, and Simon,

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER

323

showing greater than usual patience, was making good
progress.

"Say 'now.' " Binabik cocked an eyebrow.
" Ummu."

Qantaqa, trotting beside them, lifted her head and
huffed, then found her voice for a short bark. Binabik
laughed.

"She is not understanding why you are now speaking
to her," he explained. "These are words she hears only
from me."

"But I thought you said that your people had a whole
different language that you spoke to your animals." Si-
mon banged his gloved hand together to keep his fingers
from turning into icicles.

Binabik gave him a look of reproach. "I am not talking
to Qantaqa as we trolls are speaking to our rams, or to
birds or fish. She is my friend. I speak to her as I would
to any friend."

"Oh." Simon eyed the wolf. "How do you say 'I'm
sorry,' Binabik?"

"Chem ea dok."

He turned and patted the wolf's wide back. "Chem ea
dok, Qantaqa." She grinned hugely up at him, panting
steam.

After they had walked a little farther. Simon said;

"Where are we going?"

"As I was telling the night before: we are going to go
and collect the boats. Or rather, we are to be sending the
boat-owners to the forge, where Sludig and others will be
breaking the boats up. But we will give each person one
of these—" he displayed a wad of parchment scraps with
Josua's rune printed large on each, "—so that they know
they are having the prince's word that they will be re-
paid." .

Simon was puzzled. "I still don't understand what
you're going to do. Those people need their boats to catch
fish, to feed themselves and their families."

Binabik shook his head. "Not when even the rivers are
now so thick with ice. And if we do not win here, it will




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matter little what plans the folk of New Gadrinsett are

having."

"So are you going to tell me what your plan is?"

"Soon, Simon, soon. When we are finished with this
morning's work, I will take you to the forge and you will
then be seeing."

They strode along toward the settlement.

"Fengbald will probably attack soon."

"I am certain," said Binabik. "This cold must wear
down the spirits of his men, even if they are having pay-
ment from the king's gold."

"But they'll be too few to lay siege, don't you think?
Sesuad'ra is quite large, even for a thousand men."

"I am agreeing with your thought, Simon." Binabik
considered. "Josua and Freosel and others were speaking
of this last night. They are thinking that Fengbald will not
try to besiege the hill. In any case, I am doubting that he
knows how sad is our preparedness or scant our sup-
plies."

"So what will he do, then?" Simon tried to think like
Fengbald. "I guess that he'll simply try to overwhelm us.
From what I've heard about him, he's not the patient

type."

The troll looked up at him appraismgly, a twinkle in his
dark eyes. "I think that you have thought well, Simon.
That is seeming most likely to me, also. If you could lead
a force of spying men to Fengbald's camp, it is only sense
that he has sent spies here as well—Sludig and Hotvig
think they have seen evidence of this, tracks of horses and
such. So, he will know that there is a broad road that
leads up the hill, and while it is something we can be de-
fending, it is not like a castle wall where stones can be
thrown down from above. I am guessing that he will try
to overwhelm the resistance with his more strong and
fearsome soldiers and drive all the way to the hilltop."

Simon pondered this. "We have more men than he may
know, now that your folk are here. Maybe we can hold
him longer than he thinks."

"Without doubt," Binabik said briskly. "But ultimately
we will fail. They will be finding other ways up the

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

325

slope—also unlike a castle, the hill can be climbed by
men of determination, even in this cold and slippery
weather."

"Then what can we do—nothing?"

"We can be using our brains as well as our hearts,
friend Simon." Binabik smiled—a gentle, yellow smile.
"That is why we are now hunting for boats—or rather, for
the nails that are holding boats together."

"Nails?" Simon was even more puzzled.

"You will see. Now quick, give me the word that is
meaning 'attack'!"

Simon thought. "Nihuk."

Binabik reached over and gave him a little shove on the
hip. "Nihut. With the sound of 't,' not 'k.'"

"Nihut!" Simon said loudly.

Qantaqa growled and looked around, searching for an
enemy.

*

Simon dreamed that he stood in the great throne room
of the Hayholt, watching Josua and Binabik and a host of
others search for the three swords. Although they were
hunting in every corner, lifting each tapestry in turn and
even looking beneath the malachite skirts of the statues of
the Hayholt's former kings, only Simon seemed able to
see that black Thorn, gray Sorrow, and a third silvery
blade that must be King John's Bright-Nail were propped
in plain sight on the great throne of yellowing ivory, the
Dragonbone Chair.

Although Simon had never seen this third sword from
any nearer than a hundred feet when he had lived at the
Hayholt, it was remarkably clear to his dream-vision, the
golden hilt worked in the curve of a holy Tree, the edge
so polished that it sparkled even in the dim chamber. The
blades leaned against each other, hilts in the air, like some
unusual three-legged stool; the great, grinning skull of the
dragon Shurakai stretched over them, as though at any
moment it would gobble them down, sucking them out of
sight forever. How could Josua and the others not see

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them? It was so obvious! Simon tried to tell his friends
what they were missing, but could find no voice. He tried
to point, to make some sound that would draw their atten-
tion, but he had somehow lost his body. He was a ghost,
and his beloved friends and allies were making a terrible,

terrible mistake....

"Damn you, Simon, get up!" Sludig was shaking him
roughly. "Hotvig and his men say Fengbald is marching.
He will be here before the sun is above the tree line."

Simon struggled to a sitting position. "What?" he gur-
gled. "What?"

"Fengbald is coming." The Rimmersman had retreated
to the doorway. "Get up!"

"Where is Binabik?" His heart was beating swiftly
even as he fought toward full wakefulness. What was he
supposed to do?

"He is already with Prince Josua and the others. Come
now." Sludig shook his head, then grinned with fierce ex-
hilaration. "Finally—someone to fight'" He ducked
through me tent flap and was gone.

Simon scrambled out from beneath his cloak and fum-
bled on his boots, snagging a thumbnail in his chill-
fingered hurry. He swore quietly as he threw on his outer
shirt, then found his Qanuc knife and strapped on the
sheath. The sword Josua had given him was wrapped in
its polishing cloth beneath his pallet; when he unwrapped
it, the steel was icy against his hand. He shuddered.
Fengbald was coming. It was the day they had talked of
for so many weeks. People would die, perhaps some of
them before the gray sun even reached noon. Perhaps Si-
mon himself would be one of them.

"Bad thoughts," he mumbled as he buckled his sword
belt. "Bad luck." He made the sign of the Tree to ward
off his own ill-speaking. He had to hurry. He was needed.
As he foraged in the comer of the tent for his gloves he
came upon the strangely-shaped bundle that Aditu had
given him. He had forgotten it since the night he had sto-
len out to the Observatory. What was it? He had a sudden
and sickening recollection that Amerasu had wanted it
given to Josua.

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER

327

Merciful Aedon, what have I done?

Was it something that might have saved them? Had he,
in his foolishness, in his mooncalf forgetful ness, ne-
glected a weapon that might help keep his friends alive?
Or was it something with which to summon the aid of the
Sithi? Would it now be too late?

Heart thudding at the magnitude of his mistake, he
snatched up the bag—noticing even in his fearful haste
the odd, slithering softness of its weave—then dashed out
into the icy dawn light.

A huge crowd was gathering in the Leavetaking House,
caught up in a frenzy of activity that seemed ready at any
moment to spill over into panicked flailing. At the center
of it all Simon found Josua and a small group that in-
cluded Deornoth, Geloe, Binabik, and Freosel. The
prince, any trace of indecision vanished, was calling out
orders, reviewing plans and arrangements, and exhorting
some of the more anxious of New Gadrinsett's defenders.
The brightness of Josua's eye made Simon feel like a trai-
tor.

"Your Highness." He took a step forward, then dropped
to a knee before the prince, who looked down in mild sur-
prise.

"Up, Simon," Deornoth said impatiently. "There is
work to do."

"I'm afraid I've made a terrible mistake. Prince Josua."

The prince paused, visibly willing himself to calm at-
tention. "What do you mean, son?"

Son. The word struck Simon very hard. He wished that
Josua could truly have been his father—there was cer-
tainly something in the man that he loved. "I think I have
done a foolish thing," he said. "Very foolish."

"Speak with care," said Binabik. "Tell just the facts
that have importance."

Prince Josua's alarmed expression eased as he listened
to Simon's worried explanation. "Give it to me, then," he
said when Simon had finished. "There is no point in tor-
menting yourself until we know what it is. I feared from
the look on your face that you had done something to

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Tad Williams

leave us open to attack. As it is, your bundle is most
likely only some token."

"A fairy gift?" Freosel asked doubtfully. "Be those not

perilous?"

Josua squatted and took the bag from Simon. It was
difficult for him to untie the knotted drawstring with only
one hand, but no one dared offer him aid. When the
prince had at last worked it open, he upended the bag.
Something wrapped in an embroidered black cloth rolled
out into his lap.

"It is a horn," he said as he pulled away the covering
and held it up. It was made of a single piece of ivory or
unyellowed bone, chased all over with fine carvings. The
lip and mouthpiece were sheathed in a silvery metal, and
the horn itself hung on a black baldric as sumptuously
worked as the wrapping. There was something unusual in
the shape of it, some compelling but not quite recogniza-
ble essence. Although age and much use were suggested
by its every line, still at the same time it shone as though
newly made. It was potent, Simon saw: though it was not
like Thom, which sometimes almost seemed to breathe,
the hom had something in it which drew the eye.

"It is a beautiful thing," Josua murmured- He tilted it
from side to side, squinting at the carvings. "I can read
none of these, although some look like writing-runes."

"Prince Josua?" Binabik held out his hands. Josua
passed the hom to him. 'They are all Sithi runes—not a
surprising thing on a present from Amerasu."

"But the winding-cloth and the baldric are of mortal
weave," Geloe said abruptly. "That is a strange thing."

"Can you read any of the writing?" Josua asked.

Binabik shook his head. "Not now. It might be so with
some studying."

"Perhaps you can read this." Deornoth leaned forward
and plucked a scrap of shimmery parchment out of the
bell of the hom. He opened it, whistled in surprise, then
handed it to Josua.

"It is written in our Westeriing letters!" said the prince.
" 'May this be given to its rightful owner when all seems
lost.' Then there is a strange sign—like an *A.'"

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

329

"Amerasu's mark." Geloe's deep voice was sorrowful.
"Her mark."

"But what can it mean?" Josua asked. "What is it, and
who could be its rightful owner? It is clearly something
of worth."

"Beggin' pardon. Prince Josua," Freosel said nerv-
ously, "but p'raps would be best not to meddle with such
things—p'raps there be curse on it or somewhat like that-
The gifts of the Peaceful Ones, they say, can cut both
ways."

"But if it is meant to summon aid," said Josua, "then it
seems a shame not to use it. If we are vanquished today,
all will not just seem lost, it will be lost."

He hesitated for a moment, then lifted the horn to his
lips and blew. Astonishingly, there was no sound at all.
Josua stared into the bell of the hom in search of some
obstruction, then puffed his cheeks again and blew until
he was bent almost double, but still the hom was silent-
He straightened with a shaky laugh. "Well, I do not seem
to be the thing's rightful owner. Someone else try—
anyone, it matters not."

Deomoth at last accepted it from him and lifted it, but
had no more luck than Josua. Freosel waved it away. Si-
mon took it, and although he puffed until black flecks
whirled before his eyes, the hom remained mute.

"What is it for?" Simon panted.

Josua shrugged. "Who can say? But I do not think you
have done any harm, Simon. If it is meant to serve some
purpose, that purpose has not yet been revealed to us." He
wrapped the hom again, then placed it back into the sack
and put it down beside his feet. "We have other things to
occupy us now. If we survive this day, then we will look
at it again—perhaps Binabik or Geloe will be able to puz-
zle out its carvings. Now, bring me the tally of men,
Deomoth, and let us make final dispositions."

Binabik pulled away from the group and came and took
Simon's arm. 'There are still a few things you should
have," he said, "then you should go to be with your
Qanuc troop."

Simon followed his small friend across the milling con-

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fusion of the Leavetaking House. "I hope your schemes

work, Binabik."

The troll made a hand sign. "As I am hoping, too. But
we will do what is our best to do. That is all the gods, or
your God, or our ancestors can be expecting."

Against the far corner of the western wall a line of men
stood before a dwindling pile of wooden shields, some of
which still bore river-moss stains from their previous ex-
istence as boat timbers. Sangfugol, wearing a sort of
battle-dress of ragged gray, was overseeing the distribu-
tion.

The harper looked up. "There you are. It's in the cor-
ner. Ho, stop that, you!" he snarled at a bearded older
man who was pawing through the pile. 'Take the one

that's on top."

Binabik went to the place Sangfugol had indicated and
drew something out from beneath a pile of sacking. It was
another wooden shield, but this one had been painted with
the arms Vorzheva and Outrun had created for Simon's
banner, the black sword and white dragon intertwined
over Josua's gray and red.

"It is not done with the hand of art," the troll said. "But
it was done with the hand of friendship."

Simon bent and embraced him, then took the shield and
thumped it with the heel of his hand. "It's perfect."

Binabik frowned. "I am only wishing that you were
having more time for practicing with its use, Simon. It is
not easy to be riding and using a shield and fighting, too."
His look grew more worried as he gripped Simon's fin-
gers in his own small fist. "Do not be foolish, Simon. You
are yourself of great importance, and my people are being
very important as well ... but the finest of all things that
I am knowing will be with you, also." He turned his
round face away. "She is a huntress of our folk and brave
as a thunderstorm, but—Qinkipa!—how I wish Sisqi were
not in this fighting today."

"Aren't you going to be with us?" Simon asked, sur-
prised.

"I will be with the prince, acting as messenger since

Qantaqa and I can be moving with swiftness and quiet

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

331

where a bigger man on a horse might be observed." The
troll laughed softly. "Still, I will be carrying a spear for
the first time since my manhood-walk. It will be a
strangeness to have that in my hand." His smile vanished.
" *No' is the answer to your questioning, Simon—I will
not be with you, at least not closely by. So please, my
good friend, keep an eye out for Sisqinanamook. If you
are keeping her from harm, you keep away a blow to my
own heart that might be the killing of me." He squeezed
Simon's hand again. "Come. There are things we must
still be doing. It is not enough to have clever schemes,"
he tapped his forehead and smiled mockingly, "if they are
not completed with propemess,"

They met at last in the Fire Garden, all of Sesuad'ra's
defenders, those who would fight and those who would
stay behind, gathered together on the great commons-yard
of tiles. Although the sun was well into the sky, the day
was dark and very cold; many had brought torches. Si-
mon felt a pang at seeing the flames fluttering in this
open place, as they had in his vision of the past. A thou-
sand Sithi had once waited here, just as his friends and al-
lies now waited, for something" that would change their
lives forever.

Josua stood on a section of broken wall so that he
could look out over the hushed crowd. Simon, standing
close beside him, saw the prince's look of disappoint-
ment. The defenders were so few, his face said clearly,
and so poorly prepared.

"People of New Gadrinsett and our kind allies of
Yiqanuc," Josua called, "there is little need to speak
about what we are doing. Duke Fengbald, who slaugh-
tered the women and children of his own fiefdom in
Falshire, is coming. We must fight him. There is little
more to it than that. He is the tool of a great evil, and that
evil must be stopped here or there will be none left to re-
sist it. A victory here will not by any means overthrow
our enemies, but if we lose it will mean that those ene-
mies have won a great and total victory. Go and do your
best, both those who will fight and those who will remain

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behind with their own tasks to do. Surely God is watching
and will see your bravery."

The murmurs that had risen when Josua spoke of evil
turned into cheers as he finished. The prince then reached
down to help Father Strangyeard climb into place to say

the benediction.

The archivist fretfully smoothed his few strands of hair.
"I am certain I will muddle it," he whispered.

"You know it perfectly," said Deomoth. Simon thought
he meant it kindly, but the knight could not keep impa-
tience from his voice.

"I fear I am not meant to be a war-priest."

"Nor should you be," Josua said harshly. "Nor should
any priest, if God were doing all that he ought to."

"Prince Josua!" Startled, Father Strangyeard sucked in
air and coughed. "Beware of blasphemy!"

The prince was grim. "After these last two years of tor-
ment across the land. God must have learned to be a little
... flexible. I am sure He will understand my words."

Strangyeard could only shake his head.

When the priest had finished his blessing, much of
which was inaudible to the large crowd, Freosel mounted
the wall with the ease of one used to climbing. The
heavyset man had taken on an increasing burden of the
defense, and seemed to be thriving under the responsibil-
ity.

"Come on, then," he said loudly, his rough voice reach-
ing out to every one of the several hundred gathered in
that cold, windy place. "You heard what Prince Josua
said. What more need you know? Defending our home's
what we be doing. Even a badger'll do that without think-
ing a moment. Will you let Fengbald and them come and
take your home, kill your families? Will you?"

The assembled folk called back a ragged but heartfelt

denial.

"Right. So, let's go to it."

Simon was caught up for a moment by Freosel's words.
Sesuad'ra was his home, at least for now. If he had any
hope of finding something more permanent, he would
have to survive this day—and they would also have to

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

333

beat back Fengbald's army. He turned to Snenneq and the
other trolls who were waiting quietly a little apart from
the rest of the defenders.

"Nenit, henimaatuya," Simon said, waving them to-
ward the stables where the rams—and Simon's horse—
were waiting patiently. "Come on, friends."

Despite the chill of the day, Simon found himself
sweating heavily beneath his helmet and chain mail. As
he and the trolls turned off from the main road and started
downslope through the clinging brush, he realized that he
was, in a way, all alone—that no one would be near who
could truly understand him. What if he showed himself a
coward in front of the trolls, or something happened to
Sisqi? What if he let Binabik down?

He pushed the thoughts away. There were things to do
that would require his concentration. There could be no
mooncalf foolishness, as with the forgotten gift from
Amerasu.

As they neared the base of the hill and the hidden
places near the foot of the road, Simon's company dis-
mounted and led their beasts into place. The hill slope
was covered here with ice-blasted bracken that snatched
at feet and tore cloaks, so it took them a good part of an
hour before they had finally selected their spots and the
crackling and rustling had ceased. When all the troop was
settled in, Simon climbed up out of the shallow gulley so
that he could see the barricade of felled trees that Sludig
and others had built at the skirt of the hill, blocking en-
trance to the wide, stone-paved road. It was to be his re-
sponsibility to relay the prince's commands.

Out beyond the expanse of ice that had once been
Sesuad'ra's floodwater moat, the near shore was covered
with a dark, seething mass. It took Simon a few startled
moments to realize that this was Fengbald's army, settled
in along the edge of the frozen water. It was more than an
army, for the duke appeared to have brought a large sec-
tion of the squatter town of Gadrinsett with him: tents and
cookfires and makeshift forges spread lumpily into the
distance, filling the small valley with smokes and steams.

334

Tad Williams

Simon knew it was an army of only a thousand or so, but
to one who had not seen the army ten times larger that
had besieged Naglimund, it seemed as vast as the legend-
ary Muster of Anitulles that had covered the hills of
Nabban like a blanket of spears. Chill sweat began to
bead on his forehead once more. They were so near! Two
hundred ells or more separated Fengbald's forces from Si-
mon's hidden perch, yet he could clearly see individual
faces among the armored men. They were people, living
people, and they were coming to kill him. Simon's com-
panions would in turn try to kill as many of these soldiers
as possible. There would be many new widows and or-
phans at the end of this day.

An unexpected trill of melody behind him made Simon
jump. He whirled to see one of the trolls rocking slowly
from side to side, his head lifted in quiet song. The troll,
alerted by Simon's sudden movement, looked up at him
questioningly. Simon tried to smile and waved for the lit-
tle man to continue- After a moment the troll's plaintive
voice rose once more into the freezing air, lonely as a bird
in a leafless tree.

/ don't want to die, thought Simon. And God, please, I
want to see Miriamele again—/ truly, truly do.

A vision of her came to him suddenly, a memory of
their last desperate moment near the Stile, when the giant
had come crashing down on them just as Simon had fi-
nally sparked his torch alight. Her eyes, Miriamele's eyes
... they had been frightened but resolute. She was brave,
he remembered helplessly, brave and lovely. Why had he
never told her how much he admired her—even if she
was a princess?

There was a movement downslope near the barricade
of tumbled trunks. Josua, his crippled right arm marking
him even at a distance, was climbing onto the makeshift
wall. A cloaked and hooded trio mounted to stand beside

him.

Josua cupped his hand before his mouth- "Where is
Fengbald?" he shouted. His voice echoed out across the
frozen lake and reverberated in the hollows of the close-
looming hills. "Fengbald!"

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER            335

After some moments a small group of figures detached
themselves from the horde along the shore and came a
short way out onto the ice. In their midst, mounted on a
tall charger, rode one who was armored in silver and
cloaked in bright scarlet. A silver bird flared its wings
upon his helmet, which he removed and tucked beneath
his arm. His long hair was black, and fluttered in the stiff
wind.

"So you are there after all, Josua," the rider shouted. "I
was wondering."

"You are trespassing on free lands, Fengbald. We do
not acknowledge my brother Elias here, for his crimes
have stolen away his right to rule my father's kingdom. If
you leave now, you may go away freely and tell him so."

Laughing, Fengbald threw back his head in what
seemed quite genuine amusement. "Very good, Josua,
very good!" he bellowed. "No, it is you who must con-
sider my offer. If you will surrender yourself to the king's
justice, I promise that all but the guiltiest few of your
traitorous mob will be allowed back to take their place as
honorable subjects. Surrender, Josua, and they will be
spared."

Simon wondered what effect this promise would have
on the frightened and unhopeful army of New Gadrinsett.
Fengbald was doubtless wondering the same.

"You lie, murderer!" someone shouted from near Josua,
but the prince lifted his hand in a calming gesture.

"Did you not make that same promise to the wool mer-
chants of Falshire," Josua called, "before you burned
their wives and children in their beds?"

Fengbald was too distant for his expression to be dis-
cernible, but from the way he straightened in the saddle,
pushing against his stirrups until he was almost stand-
ing, Simon could guess at the anger surging through him.
"You are in no position to speak so insolently, Josua," the
duke shouted. "You are a prince of nothing but trees and
a few tattered, hungry sheepherders. Will you surrender
and save much bloodshed?"

Now one of the other figures standing beside Josua
stepped forward. "Hear me!" It was Geloe; she pulled

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Tad Williams

back her hood as she spoke. "Know that I am Valada
Geloe, protectress of the forest." She waved her cloaked
arm toward the shadowy face of the Aldheorte, which
loomed on the hillcrest like a vast and silent witness.
"You may not know me, lord from the cities, but your
Thrithings allies have heard of me. Ask your mercenary
friend Lezhdraka if he recognizes my name."

Fengbald did not reply, but appeared to be in conversa-
tion with someone standing near him.

"If you would attack us, think of this," Geloe called.
"This place, Sesuad'ra, is one of the Sithi's most sacred
spots. I do not think they would like it spoiled by your
coming. If you try to force your way in, you may find that
they make a more terrible enemy than you can guess."

Simon was sure, or at least thought he was sure, that
the witch woman's speech was an idle threat, but he
found himself wishing again that Jiriki had come. Was
this what a condemned man felt as he sat looking through
the window slit at his gallows a-building? Simon felt a
dull certainty that he and Josua and the rest could not
win. Fengbald's army seemed a great infection upon the
snowy plain beyond the lake, a plague that would destroy
them all.

"I see," Fengbald shouted suddenly, "that you have not
only gone mad yourself, Josua, but that you have sur-
rounded yourself with other mad folk as well. So be it!
Tell the old woman to hurry and call out to her forest
spirits—perhaps the trees will come and rescue you. 1
have lost patience!" Fengbald waved his hand and a flurry
of arrows spat out from the men along the shoreline. They
all fell short of the barricade and skittered along the ice-
Josua and the others clambered down into the under-
growth surrounding the pile of logs, disappearing once

more from Simon's view.

At another cry from Fengbald, something that looked
like a huge barge moved slowly out onto the ice. This
war-engine was pulled by stout dray horses who were
themselves covered in padded armor, and as it scraped
along the ice it made a continual shrieking noise. From
the dreadful sound, it might have been a market cart full

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

337

of damned souls. The bed of the sledge was piled high
with bulging sacks.

Simon could not help shaking his head, impressed de-
spite his sudden fear. Someone in Fengbald's camp had
been planning well.

As the great sledge moved out across the ice, the mea-
ger swarm of arrows coming back from the defenders—
they had few to begin with, and Josua had warned them
repeatedly against waste—bounced ineffectually from its
steel-shod sides, or stuck harmlessly in the armor of the
horses that drew it until they began to resemble some fab-
ulous species of long-legged porcupines. Where the
sledge passed, its crosswise runners scraped the ice raw.
From holes in the mountain of sacks, a wide shower of
sand dribbled down the sledge's sloping bed and spattered
across the frozen surface of the lake. Fengbald's soldiers,
following the sledge in a wide column, found much fir-
mer footing than Josua and the defenders had ever sus-
pected they might.

"Aedon curse them!" Simon felt his heart sink within
his breast. Fengbald's army, a pulsing column like a
stream of ants, moved forward across the moat.

One of the trolls, eyes wide, said something Simon
could only partially understand.

"Shummuk." For the first time Simon felt real fear coil-
ing inside him like a serpent, crushing hope. He must
keep to the plan, although all now seemed doubtful.
"Wait. We will wait."

A

Far from Sesuad'ra, and yet somehow strangely near,
there was a movement in the heart of the ancient forest
Aldheorte. In a deep grove that was touched only lightly
by the snows that had blanketed the woods for many
months, a horseman rode out from between two standing
stones and turned his impatient mount around and around
at the center of the clearing.

"Come out!" he cried- The tongue he spoke was the
oldest in Osten Ard. His armor was blue and yellow and

338

Tad Williams

silver-gray, polished until it gleamed. "Come through the
Gate of Winds!"

Other riders and their mounts began to make their way
out between the tall stones until the dell was foggy with
the clouds of their breath.

The first rider reined up his horse before the assembled
throng. He lifted a sword before him, lifted it as though
it might pierce the clouds. His hair, bound only by a band
of blue cloth, had once been lavender. Now it was as
white as the snow clinging to the tree branches.

"Follow me, and follow Indreju, sword of my grandfa-
ther," Jiriki cried. "We go to the aid of friends. For the
first time in five centuries, the Zida'ya will ride."

The others lifted their weapons, shaking them at the
sky. A strange song began to build, deep as the booming
of marsh bitterns, wild as a wolf cry, until all were sing-
ing and the glade shook with the force of it.

"Away, Houses of the Dawn!" Jiriki's thin face was
fierce, his eyes alight, burning like coals. "Away, come
away! And let our enemies tremble! The Zida'ya ride

again!"

Jiriki and the rest—his mother Likimeya on her tall
black horse, Yizashi of the gray spear, bold Cheka'iso
Amber-Locks, even Jiriki's green-clad uncle Khendraja'aro
with his longbow—all spurred their horses out of the clear-
ing with a great shout and a singing. So great was the tu-
mult of their going that the trees seemed to bend away
before them' and the wind, as if abashed, was momentarily
silent in their wake.

11

The Road Back

Minomefe slouched lower inside her cloak, trying to
vanish. It seemed that every person who passed by
slowed to look at her, the slender Wrannamen with their
calm brown eyes and rigorously expressionless faces as
well as the Perdroinese traders in their slightly shabby
finery. All seemed to be pondering the appearance of this
crop-haired girl in a stained monk's habit, and it was
making her very anxious. Why was Cadrach taking so
long? Surely she should have known better by now than
to let him go into an inn by himself.

When the monk appeared at last he wore an air of self-
satisfaction, as though he had completed some immensely
difficult task.

"It is down by Peat Barge Quay, as I should have re-
membered. A none-too-savory district."

"You have been drinking wine." Her tone was harsher
than she wanted it to be, but she was cold and fretful.

"And how could I expect a publican to give me good
directions if I bought nothing?" Cadrach was not to be so
easily thrown off stride. He seemed to have rebounded
from the despair that had filled him on the boat, although
Miriamele could see where it was imperfectly hidden,
where the deadly bleakness peered past the ragged edges
of the jollity he had drawn over himself like a cloak.

"But we have no money!" she complained. "That's
why we have to walk all over this cursed town, trying to
find a place you said you knew!"

"Hush, my lady. I made a small wager on a coin-flip

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Tad Williams

and won—and just as well, too, since I'd no coin to
match the bet. But all's well now. In any case, it is trav-
eling on foot through this city of canals that has confused
me, but with the innkeeper's instructions, we will have no
more problems."

No more problems- Miriamele had to laugh at that, if
bitterly. They had been living like beggars for three
weeks—parched on the boat for several days, then slog-
ging through the coast towns of southeastern Nabban beg-
ging meals where they could and taking rides on farm
wagons when they were lucky enough to get them. The
largest portion of the time had been spent walking, walk-
ing, walking, until Miriamele felt that if she were to
somehow remove her legs from her body they would con-
tinue pacing along without her. This kind of life was not
unfamiliar to Cadrach, and he seemed to have returned to
it complacently, but Miriamele was growing more than
tired of it. She could never live in her father's court
again, but suddenly the stifling surroundings of Uncle
Josua's castle at Naglimund seemed a great deal more ap-
pealing than they had a few months before-

She turned to say something else sharp to Cadrach—
she could smell the wine on his breath at an arm's
distance—and caught him by surprise, unguarded. He had
let his buoyant expression slip; the hollowness in his once
round cheeks and the shadows beneath his haunted eyes
chastened Miriamele into a kind of irritated love.

"Well ... come on, then." She took his arm. "But if
you don't find this place soon, I'm going to push you into
the canal."

Since they did not have the price of a boatman's fare,
it took the better part of the morning for Cadrach and
Miriamele to make their way through the daunting maze
of Kwanitupul's wooden walkways to Peat Bog Quay. Ev-
ery turn seemed to bring them to another dead end, an-
other passage that ended in an abandoned boatyard or a
locked door with rusty hinges or a rickety fence beyond
which was only yet another of the ubiquitous waterways.
Thwarted, they would retrace their steps, try another tum-

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

34'

ing, and the maddening process would begin again. At
last, with the noon sun whitening the cloudy sky, they
stumbled around the corner of a long and very deterio-
rated warehouse and found themselves staring at a salt-
rotted wooden sign that proclaimed the inn before which
it hung as Pelippa s Bowl. It was indeed, as Cadrach had
warned, in a rather unsavory district.

While Cadrach searched for the door—the front of the
building was an almost uniform wall of gray, weathered
wood—Miriamele wandered out onto the inn's front deck
and stared down at a wreath of yellow and white flowers
floating on the choppy canal near the wharf ladder.

"That's a Soul's Day wreath," she said.

Cadrach, who had found the door, nodded.

"Which means it was more than four months ago that
I left Naglimund," she said slowly. The monk nodded
again, then pulled the door open and beckoned.
Miriamele felt a wild sorrow course through her. "And it
was all for nothing! Because I was a headstrong fool!"

"Things would have gone no better, and perhaps worse,
if you had stayed with your uncle," Cadrach pointed out.
"At least you are alive, my lady. Now, let us go and see
if Soria Xorastra will remember an old, if fallen, friend."

They entered the inn through the dooryard, past the
corroding hulks of a pair of fishing boats, and quickly re-
ceived two unpleasant surprises. The first was that the Hn
itself was ill-kept and smelled distinctly of fish. The sec-
ond was that Xorastra had been dead for three years, anc1
her jut-jawed niece Charystra quickly proved to be quite
a different sort of innkeeper than her predecessor.

She stared at their threadbare and travel-stained cloth-
ing. "I don't like the look of you. Let me see your
money."

"Come, now," Cadrach said as soothingly as he could.
"Your aunt was a good friend of mine. If you let us have
a bed for the night, we will have money to pay you by the
morning—I am well known in this town."

"My aunt was mad and worthless," Charystra said, not
without some satisfaction, "—and her stinking charities
left me with nothing but this tumbledown bam." She

342

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER

Tad Williams

343

waved her hand at the low-ceilinged common room,
which seemed more like a burrow belonging to some dis-
heartened animal. "The day I let a monk and his doxy
stay without paying is the day they take me back to
Perdruin in a wooden box."

Miriamele could not help looking forward to such a
day, but she knew better than to let the innkeeper know it.
"Things are not as they appear," she said. "This man is
my tutor. I am a nobleman's child—Baron Seoman of
Erkynland is my father. I was kidnapped, and my tutor
here found me and saved me. My father will be very kind
to anyone who helps with my return." Beside her,
Cadrach straightened up, pleased to be the hero of even a
mythical rescue.

Charystra squinted. "I've heard more than a few wild
stories lately." She chewed at her lip. "One of them
turned out to be true, but that doesn't mean yours will."
Her expression turned sour. "I've got to make a living,
whether your father is a baron or the High King at the
Hayholt. Go out and get the money, if you say it's so
easy. Let your friends help you."

Cadrach began once more to wheedle and flatter, now
taking up the strands of story Miriamele had begun and
weaving them into a richer tapestry, one in which
Charystra would retire with bags of gold, a gift from the
grateful father. Hearing the wild way in which the story
grew beneath Gadrach's manipulation, Miriamele almost
began to feel sorry for the woman, whose practicality was
obviously being strained by her greed, but just before
Miriamele was about to ask him to give it up, she saw a
large man coming slowly down the stairway into the com-
mons room. Despite his clothes—he wore a cowled cloak
much like Cadrach's, belted with a rope—and a beard that
was scarcely a finger's breadth thick, he was so instantly
familiar that for a moment Miriamele could not believe
what she was seeing. As he came down into the light of
the tallow lamps, the man also stopped, wide-eyed.

"Miriamele?" he said at last. His voice was thick and
hesitant. "Princess?"

"Isgrimnur'" she shrieked. "Duke Isgrimnur!" Her




heart seemed to expand within her breast until she
thought she might choke. She ran across the cluttered
room, dodging past the crooked-legged benches, then
flung herself against his broad belly, weeping.

"Oh, you poor thing," he said, squeezing her, crying
himself. "Oh, my poor Miriamele." He lifted her away for
a moment, staring with reddened eyes. "Are you hurt?
Are you well?" He caught sight of Cadrach and his eyes
narrowed. "And there's the rogue who stole you!"

Cadrach, who like Charystra had been staring open-
mouthed, flinched. Isgrimnur cast a large shadow.

"No, no," Miriamele laughed through her tears.
"Cadrach is my friend. He helped me. I ran away—don't
blame him." She hugged him again, burying her face in
his reassuring bulk. "Oh, Isgrimnur, I have been so un-
happy. How is Uncle Josua? And Vorzheva, and Simon,
and Binabik the troll?"

The duke shook his head. "I know little more than you
do, I would guess." He sighed, his breath trembling out.
"This is a miracle. God has heard my prayers at last.
Blessed, blessed. Come, sit down." Isgrimnur turned to
Charystra and waved his hand impatiently. "Well? Don't
just stand there, woman! Bring-us some ale, and some
food, too!"

Charystra, more than a little stunned, went lurching
away.

"Wait!" Isgrimnur shouted. She turned to face him. "If
you tell anyone about this," he roared, "I'll pull your roof
down with my own hands."

The innkeeper, beyond surprise or fear, nodded slackly
and headed for the sanctuary of her kitchen.

Tiamak hurried along, although his lame leg allowed
him scarcely more speed than what would have been a
normal walking pace. His heart was thumping against his
ribs, but he forced himself to keep the worry from his
face.

He Who Always Steps on Sand, he murmured to him-
self, let no one notice me! I am almost there!

Those who shared the narrow walkways with him

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Tad Williams

seemed determined to hinder his progress. One burly
drylander carrying a basket full of sandfish thumped into
him and almost knocked him down, then turned to shout
insulting names as Tiamak limped on. The little man
ached to say something—Kwanitupul was a Wrannaman
town, after all, no matter how many drylander traders
built expensive stilt houses on the edge of Chamul La-
goon, or had their massive trading barges poled through
the canals by sweating crews of Tiamak's folk—but he
dared not. There was no time to waste in quarrels, how-
ever justified.

He hurried through Pelippa's Bowl's common room,
sparing barely a glance for the proprietress, despite
Charystra's strange expression. The innkeeper, clutching
a board laid with bread and cheese and olives, was sway-
ing at the foot of the stairs as though deciding whether to
go up or not was an overwhelming strain.

Tiamak angled past her and hobbled up the narrow
staircase, then onto the landing and the first warped, ill-
hung door in the passageway- He pushed it open, his chest
already filling with air to spill out his news, then stopped,
surprised by the odd tableau before him.

Isgrimnur was sitting on the floor. In the comer stood
a short, husky man, dressed as was the duke in the cos-
tume of a pilgrim Aedonite monk, his squarish face curi-
ously closed. Old Camaris sat on the bed, his long legs
crossed sailor-style. Beside him sat a young woman with
yellow hair close-cropped. She, too, wore a monk's robe,
and her pretty, sharp-featured face was set in an expres-
sion of bemusement almost as complete as Charystra's.

Tiamak closed his jaw with a snap, then opened it once
more. "What?" he said.

"Ah!" Isgrimnur seemed immensely cheerful, almost
giddy. "And this is Tiamak, a noble Wrannaman, a friend
of Dinivan and Morgenes. The princess is here, Tiamak.
Miriamele has come."

Miriamele did not even look up, but continued to stare
at the old man. "This is ... Camaris?"

"I know, I know," Isgrimnur laughed. "I couldn't credit
it myself. God strike me—but it is him' Alive, after all

TO  GREEN   ANGEL TOWER

345

this time!" The duke's face suddenly became serious.
"But his wits are gone, Miriamele. He is like a child."

Tiamak shook his head. "I ... I am glad, Isgrimnur.
Glad that your friends are here." He shook his head
again. "I have news, too."

"Not now." Isgrimnur was beaming. "Later, little man.
Tonight we celebrate." He lifted his voice. "Charystra!
Where are you, woman!?"

The inn's proprietress had just begun to push the door
open when Tiamak turned and shut it in her face. He
heard a surprised grunt and the thud of a heavy bread loaf
bounding down the stairway. "No," Tiamak said. "This
cannot wait, Isgrimnur."

The duke frowned at him, thick brows beetling.
"Well?"

"There are men searching for this inn. Nabbanai sol-
diers."

Isgrimnur's impatience suddenly dropped away. He
turned his full attention to the little Wrannaman. "How do
you know?"

"I saw them down by Market Hall. They were asking
questions of the boatmen there, treating them very
roughly. The leader of the soldiers seemed desperate to
find this inn."

"And did they find out?" Isgrimnur rose to his feet and
walked across the room, taking up his sword Kvalnir
from where it stood bundled in the comer.

Tiamak shrugged. "I knew I would not be able to go
much faster than me soldiers, even though I am sure I
know the city better than they do- Still, I wanted to delay
them, so 1 stepped forward and told the soldiers that /
would talk to the boatmen since they were all Wrannamen
like me." For the first time since beginning his recitation,
Tiamak turned to look at the young woman. Her face had
gone quite pale, but the dazed expression had vanished.
She was listening carefully. "In our swamp-language I
told the boatmen that these were bad men, that they
should talk only to me, and only in our tongue- I told
them that when the soldiers left, they should leave, too,
and not come back to the Market Hall until later- After I

346 Tad Williams

had talked with them for a few moments longer, pre-
tending to receive directions from them—in truth they
were merely telling me that these drylanders acted like
madmen!—I told the leader of the soldiers where he and
his men could find Pelippa's Bowl. Don't scowl so. Duke
Isgrimnur' I told them that it was on the other side of
town from here, of course! But it was so strange: when I
told that man, he shivered all over, as though knowing
where this place was made him itch."

"What ... what did the leader look like?" There was
strain in Miriamele's voice.

"He was very odd." Tiamak hesitated. He did not know
how to address a drylander princess, even one dressed
like a man. "He was the only one not dressed as a soldier.
Tall and strong-looking, wearing rich drylander's clothes,
but his face was purple with bruises, his eyes red as a
boar's, full of blood. He looked as though his head had
been crushed in a crocodile's jaws. He was missing teeth,
as well."

Miriamele groaned and slid down from the pallet onto
the floor. "Oh, Elysia, save me! It is Aspitis!" Her ragged
voice was now entirely given over to desperation.
"Cadrach, how could he know where we were going?!
Have you betrayed me again?"

The monk winced, but his words held no anger. "No,
my lady. Obviously he got back to shore, and I would
guess that he then somehow exchanged messages with his
true master." Cadrach turned toward Isgrimnur. "Pryrates
knows this place well, my lord Duke, and Aspitis is his
creature."

"Aspitis?" Isgrimnur, strapping his sword belt around
his broad middle, shook his head in bafflement. "I do not
know him, but I gather that he is no friend."

"No." Cadrach looked to Miriamele where she sat on
the floor, head in hands- "He is no friend."

Isgrimnur made a noise deep in his throat. Tiamak
turned to him with a startled look, for the duke sounded
like nothing less than an angry bear, but Isgrimnur was
only thinking, twisting his fingers in his short beard. "En-
emies are at our heels," he said at last. "Even were we sit-

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER

347

ting with the Camaris of forty years ago—ah. Lord love
him, Miriamele, he was the mightiest man of all—still I
would not like the odds. So, then, we must leave ... and
leave quickly."

"Where can we go?" asked Cadrach.

"North to Josua." Isgrimnur turned to Tiamak. "What
did you say that time, little man? That if you were trav-
eling with Camans and me as fugitives, you would find
another way?"

Tiamak felt his throat tighten. "Yes. But it will not be
easy." He felt a chill, as though the cold breath of She
Who Waits to Take All Back whispered against his neck.
He suddenly did not like the idea of taking these
drylander friends into the mazy Wran.

Miriamele arose. "Josua is alive?"

"So rumor says. Princess." Isgrimnur shook his head.
"Northeast of the Thrithings, it is claimed. But it may be
false hope."

"No!" Miriamele's face, still tearstained, wore a
strange look of surety. "I believe it."

Cadrach, still leaning in the comer like a neglected
house-god, shrugged. "There is nothing wrong with be-
lief, if it is all we can cling to. But what is this other
way?" He turned his brooding eyes on the marsh man.

"Through the Wran." Tiamak cleared his throat. "It
will be nearly impossible for them to follow us, I think.
We can make our way north to the outermost part of the
Lake Thrithing."

"Where we will be trapped on foot in the middle of a
hundred leagues of open ground," said Cadrach grimly.

"Damn it, man," Isgrimnur snarled, "what else can we
do? Try to make our way through Kwanitupul, past this
Aspitis fellow, then across all of hostile Nabban? Look at
us! Can you imagine a more unlikely and memorable
company? A girl, two monks—one bearded—a childish
old giant and a Wrannaman? What choice do we have?"

The Hemystirman seemed prepared to argue, but after
a moment's hesitation he shrugged once more, drawing
back into himself like a tortoise retreating inside its shell.
"I suppose there is no choice," he said quietly.

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Tad Williams

"What should we do?" Miriamele's fear had receded a
little. Though still shaken, she seemed bright-eyed and
determined. Tiamak could not help admiring her spirit.

Isgrimnur rubbed his large paws together. "Yes. We
must leave, certainly by the time an hour has passed,
sooner if we can, so there is no more time to waste.
Tiamak, go and watch from the front of the inn. Someone
else may give these soldiers better directions than you
did, and if they catch us unaware, we are lost. You will be
the least likely to be noticed." He looked around, think-
ing. "I will put Camaris to work patching the less man-
gled of those boats in the dooryard. Cadrach, you will
help him. Remember, he is simple-wilted, but he has been
working here for years—he knows what to do and he un-
derstands many words, though he does not speak. I will
finish gathering up the rest of our things, then I will come
help you finish the boat and carry it down to the water."

"What about me, Isgrimnur?" Miriamele was actually
bouncing from one foot to the other in her need for some-
thing to do.

'Take that shrew of an innkeeper and go down to the
kitchens and provision us. Get things that will keep, since
we don't know how long we must go without ..." He
paused, snagged by a sudden thought. "Water! Fresh wa-
ter! Sweet Usires, we are going to the swamps. Get all
you can, and I will come help you carry the jugs or what-
ever you find to put it in. There is a rain barrel in the yard
behind the inn—full, I think. Hah! I knew this foul
weather would be good for something!" He tugged at his
fingers, thinking frantically. "No, Princess, don't go yet.
Tell Charystra she will be paid for everything we take,
but don't dare say a word of where we are going! She
would peddle our immortal souls for a bent cintis-piece
each. I wish I were the same, but I will pay her for what
we take, though it will empty my purse." The duke took
a deep breath. "There! Now go to. And wherever you are,
all of you, listen for Tiamak's call and run to the dooryard
if you hear it."

He turned and pulled open the door. Charystra was sit-
ting on the top step in a scattering of foodstuffs, her face

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

349

a mask of confusion. Isgrimnur looked at her for a mo-
ment, then stepped over to Miriamele and bent to her ear;

Tiamak was close enough to hear his whisper.

"Don't let her stray from you," the duke murmured.
"We may have to take her with us, at least far enough
away to protect the secret of which way we've gone. If
she kicks up rough, just shout and I'll be there in a mo-
ment." He took Miriamele's elbow and guided her toward
Charystra's seat on the steps.

"Greetings again, goodwife," the princess said to her.
"My name is Marya. We met downstairs. Come now, let
us go to the kitchen and get some food for my friends and
me—we have been traveling and we are very hungry."
She leaned down and helped Charystra to her feet, then
bent again to retrieve the bread and cheese that had fallen.
"See?" she said cheerfully, taking the dumbfounded
woman by the arm. "We will be sure to waste nothing,
and we will pay for all."

They disappeared down the stairs.

Miriamele found herself working in a sort of haze. She
was concentrating so intently on the task at hand that she
lost all track of the reasons fof what she was doing until
she heard Tiamak's excited cry and his rabbitlike thump-
ing on the roof overhead. Her heart speeding, she
snatched up a last handful of wizened onions—Charystra
went to few pains to keep her larder well-stocked—and
bolted for the dooryard, hurrying the protesting innkeeper
along before her.

"Here, what do you think you're at?" Charystra com-
plained. "There's no cause to be treating me this way,
whoever you are!"

"Hush! All will be well." She wished she believed it.

As she reached the common room door, she heard
Isgrimnur's heavy footsteps on the stairs. He quickly
moved up behind, allowing the balking Charystra no
room for escape, and together they pushed through into
the dooryard. Camaris and Cadrach were working so in-
tently that they did not look up at the entrance of their
comrades. The old knight held a pitch-smeared brush, the

350

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monk a stnp of heavy sailcloth which he was hacking at
with a knife.

A moment later Tiamak came slithering down from the
rafters. "I saw soldiers, not far distant," he said breath-
lessly. "They are a thousand paces away, maybe fewer,
and they are coming here'"

"Are they the same ones?" Isgrimnur asked. "Damn
me, of course they are! We must go. Is the boat patched?"

"I would guess that it wilt keep the water out for a
while," Cadrach said calmly. "If we bring these things
with us," he indicated the pitch and sailcloth, "we can do
a better and more thorough job when we stop."

"If we get a chance to stop at all," the duke growled.
"Very well. Miriamele?"

"I have stripped the larders. Not that it took much
work."

Charystra, who had regained a little of her haughtiness,
drew herself up. "And what are my guests and I going to
eat?" she demanded. "The finest table in Kwamtupul, I'm
known for."

Isgrimnur's snort fluttered his whiskers. "It's not your
table that's the problem, it's the muck you put on top of
it. You'll be paid, woman—but first you're going to take
a little voyage."

"What?" Charystra shrieked. "I'm a God-loving
Aedonite woman! What are you going to do with me?"

The duke grimaced and looked at the others. "I do not
like this, but we cannot leave her here. We will put her off
somewhere safe—with her money." He turned to
Cadrach. "Take some of that rope and tie her up, will
you? And try not to hurt her."

The last few preparations were finished to the accom-
paniment of Charystra's outraged protests. Tiamak, who
seemed quite worried that Isgrimnur might have forgotten
some precious items of their baggage, ran upstairs to
make certain nothing had been left behind- When he re-
turned, he Joined the others in their efforts to move the
large boat out through the broad side-door of the yard.

"Any decent boatyard would have a windlass,"
Isgrimnur complained. Sweat was pouring down his face.

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER            351

Miriamele worried that one of the two older men might
hurt themselves, but Camaris, for all his years, seemed ut-
terly untroubled by carrying his share of the weight, and
Isgrimnur was still a powerful man. Rather, it was
Cadrach, wrung out by their misadventures, and slender
Tiamak who had the most trouble. Miriamele wanted to
help, but did not dare leave bound Charystra alone for a
moment for fear she would raise an alarm or fall into the
water and drown.

As they staggered down the ramp to the rear dock,
Miriamele was certain she could hear the tramping
bootsteps of Aspitis and his minions. The progress of the
boat seemed horrifically slow, a blind eight-legged beetle
that snagged itself on every narrow turning.

"Hurry!" she said. Her charge Charystra, understanding
nothing but her own plight, moaned.

At last they reached the water. As they eased the boat
over the edge of the floating dock, Cadrach reached down
between the benches and lifted out the heavy maul from
the pile of tools they had brought for patching the hull,
then went back up the ramp toward the inn,

"What are you doing?" Miriamele shouted. "They'll be
here at any moment!"

"I know." Cadrach broke into an uneven trot, the huge
hammer cradled against his chest.

Isgrimnur glowered. "Is the man mad?"

"I don't know." Miriamele urged Charystra toward the
boat, which was scraping gently against the side of the
dock. When the innkeeper resisted, old Camaris stood up
and lifted her down as easily a father might his small
daughter, then placed her on the bench beside him. The
woman huddled there, a tear snaking down her cheek;

Miriamele could not help but feel sorry for her.

A moment later Cadrach reappeared, pelting down the
gangway. He clambered into the boat with the help of the
others, then pushed it away from the dock. The nose
swung out toward the middle of the canal.

Miriamele helped the monk squeeze onto the bench.
"What were you doing?"

Cadrach took a moment to catch his breath, then care-

352

Tad miliams

fully laid the maul back down atop the bundle of sail-
cloth. "There was another boat. I wanted to make sure
that it would take them a lot longer to patch it than we
took on this. You can't chase anyone through Kwanitupul
without a boat."

"Good man," said Isgrimnur- "Although I'm sure they
will get a boat soon enough."

Tiamak pointed. "Look!" A dozen blue-cloaked, hel-
meted men were passing along the wooden walkway to-
ward Pelippa's Bowl.

"First they will knock," Cadrach said quietly. "Then
they will push down the door. Then they will see what
we've done and start searching for a boat"

"So we'd better take advantage of our head start.
Row!" Suiting action to word, Isgrimnur bent to his
sweep, Camaris also bent, and as their two oar-blades bit
at the green water the little boat leaped forward.

In the stem, Miriamele peered back at the diminishing
inn. In the antlike movement of people near the entrance-
way, she thought she could discern a momentary flash of
golden hair. Stricken, she dropped her eyes to the choppy
canal and prayed to God's mother and several saints that
she would never have to see Aspitis again.

«

"It is only a little farther." The wall-eyed Rimmersman
looked at the palisade of gnarled pine trees as fondly as
at a familiar street. "There you can rest and eat."

"Thank you, Dypnir," Isom said. "That will be good."
He might have said more, but Eolair had caught at his bri-
dle and slowed his horse- Dypnir, who had not seemed to
notice, let his own mount carry him a little ahead until he
was only a shadow in the forest dusk.

"Are you sure you can trust this man, Isorn?" the
Count of Nad Mullach asked. "If you are not, let us de-
mand some further proof of him now, before we ride into
an ambush."

Isom's wide brow furrowed. "He is of Skoggey. Those
folk are loyal to my father."

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

353

"He says that he is from Skoggey. And they were loyal
to your father." Eolair shook his head, amazed that the
son of a duke could have so little craft. Still, he could not
help admiring Isom's kind and open heart.

Anyone that can keep himself so, in the midst of all this
horror, is someone to be treasured, the count thought, but
he felt a responsibility for, among other things, his own
skin that would not let him be silent, even if it risked of-
fending Duke Isgrimnur's son.

Isom smiled at Eolair's worry. "He knows the folk he
should know. In any case, this is a rather tricksy way to
go about ambushing a half-dozen men. Don't you think
that if this fellow was Skali's we would simply have been
fallen upon by a hundred Kaldskrykemen?"

Eolair frowned. "Not if this fellow is only a scout, and
looking to earn his spurs with a clever capture. Enough,
then. But I will keep my sword loose in the sheath."

The young Rimmersman laughed. "As will I, Count
Eolair. You forget, I spent much of my childhood with
Einskaldir, Aedon rest him—the most mistrusting man
who ever drew breath."

The Hemystinnan found himself laughing a little, too.
Einskaldir's impatience and quick temper had always
seemed more in keeping with the old pagan Rimmersgard
whose gods were as volatile as the weather, hard as the
Vestivegg Mountains.

Eolair and Isom and the four Thrithings-men sent by
Hotvig had been traveling together for several weeks
now. Hotvig's men were friendly enough, but the journey
through the civilized lands of eastern Erkynland—
civilized with houses and fields that bore the marks of
cultivation, though at the moment it seemed largely
unpopulated—had filled them with a certain unease. More
and more, as the trek wore on and the grasslanders found
themselves farther each day from the plains of their birth,
they became moody and sullen, speaking almost entirely
to each other in the guttural Thrithings tongue, sitting up
at night around the fire singing the songs of their home-
land. As a result, Isorn and Eolair had been thrown back
almost entirely on each other's company.

354

Tad Williams

To the count's relief, he had found there was a great
deal more to the duke's yellow-haired bear of a son than
was at first apparent. He was brave, there was little doubt
of that, but it seemed unlike the courageousness of many
brave men Eolair had known, who felt that to be other-
wise was to fail somehow in the sight of others. Young
Isom simply seemed to know little fear, and to do the
things he did only because they were right and necessary.
Not that he was completely nerveless. His shuddersome
story about his captivity among the Black Rimmersmen,
of the torture he and his fellows had suffered and of the
haunting presence of pale-skinned immortal visitors, still
affected him so strongly that he found it difficult to tell.
Yet Eolair, with his sharp intriguer's eye, thought that
anyone else who had suffered such an experience would
have taken it even more to heart. To Isom it was a terrible
time that was now over, and that was that.

So, as the little company had passed along the hillsides
above eerily empty Hasu Vale and through the fringes of
the Aldheorte, wide-skirting the menace of snowbound
Erchester and the Hayhott—and also, Eolair could not
help recalling, of tall Thisterborg—the Count of Nad
Mullach had found himself growing more and more fond
of this young Rimmersman, whose love for his father and
mother was so firm and uncomplicated, whose love of his
people was almost as strong and was virtually inseparable
from his feelings for his family. Still, Eolair, tired and
bruised by events, sick already of the horrors of war be-
fore this most recent one had begun, could not help won-
dering if he himself had ever been as young as Isom.

"Almost there." Dypnir's voice brought Eolair's mind
back to the dim forest track.

"I only hope they have something to drink," Isom said,
grinning, "and enough of it to share."

As Eolair opened his mouth to reply, a new voice
cracked through the evening.

"Hold! Stand where you are!" It was Westerling, spo-
ken with the thickness of Rimmersgard. Isom and Eolaii
reined up. Behind them, the four Thrithings-men brought

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER

355

their horses to an effortless halt. Eolair could hear them
wh'spering among themselves.

"It's me," their guide called, leaning his bearded head
to the side so the hidden watcher could mark him.
"Dypnir. I bring allies."

"Dypnir?" There was a note of doubt in the question. It
was followed by a flurry of Rimmerspakk. Isom seemed
to be listening carefully.

"What do they say?" Eolair whispered. "I cannot fol-
low when they speak so fast."

"About what you would expect. Dypnir has been gone
several days, and they ask him why. He explains about his
horse."

Eolair and his companions had found Dypnir beside a
forest trail in the western Aldheorte, hiding near the
corpse of his mount, whose leg had been broken in a hole
and whose throat Dypnir himself had slit a few moments
before. After sharing out the burdens of one of the pack-
horses, they had given that mount to the Rimmersman in
exchange for his aid in finding men who could help
them—they had not been too specific about the type of
help they needed, except that it seemed understood by all
parties that it would not be to the benefit of Skali Sharp-
nose.

"Very well." The hidden sentry returned to Westerling
speech. "You will follow Dypnir. But you will go slow,
and with your hands where we can see them. We have
bows, so if you think to play foolish games with us in a
dark forest, you will be sorry."

Isorn sat straighter. "We understand. But play no games
with us, either." He added something in Rimmerspakk.
After a moment of silence, some sign was given and
Dypnir started forward, Eolair's party behind him.

They plodded on for a little while into the deepening
evening.

At first all that the Count of Nad Mullach could see
were tiny sparks like red stars. As they rode forward and
the lights wavered and danced, he realized that he was
seeing the flames of a fire through close-knit, needled
branches. The company turned abruptly and rode through

356

Tad Williams

a hedge of trees, ducking at Dypnir's whispered insist-
ence, and the warm light of the blaze rose up all around

them.

The camp was what was called a woodsman's hall, a
clearing in a copse of trees that had been walled against
the wind by bundles of pine and fir branches tied between
the trunks. In the center of the open space, ranged about the
firepit, sat perhaps three or four dozen men, their eyes glint-
ing with reflected light as they silently observed the strang-
ers. Many of them wore the dirty and tattered remnants of
battle costumes; all bore the look of men who had long
slept out-of-doors,

Rhynn 's Cauldron, it is a camp of outlaws. We will be
robbed and killed. Eolair felt a brief clutch of dismay at
the thought that his quest should end so pointlessly, and
of disgust that they should have ridden so trustingly to

their deaths.

Some of the men nearest the entrance to the copse drew
their weapons. The Thri things-men shifted on their
horses, hands snaking down to their own hilts. Before
anyone's untoward movement could touch off a fatal con-
frontation, Dypnir flapped his hands in the air and slid
down from his borrowed steed. The husky Rimmersman,
far less graceful on land than on horseback, stumped to
the center of the clearing.

"Here," he said. 'These men are friends."

"No one is a friend who comes to eat out of our pot,"
one of the grimmest-looking growled. "And who is to say
they are not Skali's spies?"

Isorn, who had been watching as quietly as Eolair, sud-
denly leaned forward in the saddle. "Ule?" he said won-
deringly. "Are you not Ule, the son of Frekke Grayhair?"

The man stared at him, eyes narrowed. He was perhaps
Eolair's age. So much dirt was on his lined, weathered
face that he seemed to be wearing a mask. A hand-ax
with a pitted blade was thrust through his belt. "I am Ule
Frekkeson. How do you know my name?" He was stiff,
tensed as if to spring.

Isom dismounted and took a step toward him. "I am
Isorn, son of Duke Isgrimnur of Elvritsnalla. Your father

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

357

was one of my own father's most loyal companions. Do
you not remember me, Ule?"

A dry rustle of movement around the clearing and a
few whispered comments were all this revelation engen-
dered- If Isom expected the man before him to leap up
and joyfully embrace him, he was disappointed. "You
have grown since I last saw you, manling," said Frekke's
son, "but I see your father's face in yours," Ule stared at
him. Something was moving behind the man's quiet an-
ger. "Your father is duke no longer, and all of his men are
outlaws. Why do you come to plague us?"

"We come to ask your help. There are many beside
yourself unhomed, and they have begun to gather together
to take back what was stolen from them. I bring you tid-
ings from my father, the rightful duke—and from Josua of
Erkynland, who is his ally against Skali Sharp-nose."

The murmur of surprise grew louder. Ule paid no atten-
tion. "This is a sad trick, boy. Your father is dead at
Naglimund, your Prince Josua with him. Do not come to
us with goblin stories because you think it would be nice
to rule over a pack of house-carls again. We are free men
now." Some of his companions-growled their agreement.

"Free men?" Isom's voice suddenly grew tight with
fury. "Look at you! Look at this!" He gestured around the
clearing. Watching, Eolair marveled to see this sudden
passion in the young man. "Free to skulk in the woods
like dogs who have been whipped from the hall, do you
mean? Where are your homes, your wives, your children?
My father is alive... !" He paused, steadying his voice.
Eolair wondered if the thought had entered Isom's head
that Isgrimnur's safety was not quite so sure as he made
it sound, "My father will have his lands back," he said.
"Those who help him will have their own steadings back
as well—and more beside, because when we are finished
Skali and his Kaldskrykemen will leave behind many un-
husbanded women, many an untended field. Any true
men that we find to follow us will be well rewarded."

A harsh laugh rose up from the watching men, but it
was one of enjoyment at the boast, not mockery. Eolair,

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Tad Williams

sensibilities honed by years of courtly sparring, could feel
the spirit of the moment beginning to turn their way.

Ule suddenly rose, his beariike body wide in his ragged
furs. The noise of the onlookers dwindled away. 'Tell me
then, Isom Isgrimnurson," he demanded- 'Tell me what
happened to my father, who served your father all his life.
Does he wait for me at the end of your road, like the man-
hungry widows and the wide, masterless fields you speak
of? Will he be waiting to embrace his son?" He was shak-
ing with rage.

Clear-eyed Isorn did not flinch. He took a slow breath.
"He was at Naglimund, Ule. The castle fell before the
siege of King Elias. Only a few escaped, and your father
was not one of them. If he died, though, he died brave-
ly." He paused, lost for a moment in memory. "He was
always very kind to me."

"The damned old man loved you like his own grand-
child," Ule said bitterly, then took a lurching step for-
ward. In the moment of stunned silence Eolair fumbled
for his sword, cursing his own slowness. Ule grabbed
Isom in a rib-cracking embrace, dragging the duke's son
forward and lifting the taller man off the ground.

"God curse Skali!" Tears made pale tracks on Ule's
dirty face. "The murderer, the devil-cursed murderer! It is
bloodfeud forever." He let Isom go and wiped his face
with his sleeve. "Sharp-nose must die. Then my father
will laugh in heaven."

Isom stared at him for a moment, then tears came to
his eyes. "My father loved Frekke, Ule. 1 loved him, too."

"Blood on the Tree, is there nothing to drink in this
wretched place!?" Dypnir shouted. All around, the tat-
tered men came pressing forward to welcome Isom home.

*

"What I am going to say to you will sound most
strangely," Maegwin began- More nervous than she had
thought she would be, she took a moment to smooth the
folds of her old black dress. "But I am the daughter of
King Lluth, and I love Hemystir more than I love my own

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

359

life. I would sooner tear out my own heart than lie to
you."

Her people, gathered together in the largest of the cav-
erns beneath the Grianspog, the great high-ceilinged cat-
acomb where Justice was dispensed and food was shared
out, listened attentively. What Maegwin said might in-
deed prove strange, but they were going to hear her out.
What could be so odd as to be unbelievable in a world as
mad as the one in which they found themselves?

Maegwin looked back to Diawen, who stood just be-
hind her. The scryer, eyes radiant with some personal
happiness, smiled her approval. "Tell them!" Diawen
whispered.

"You know that the gods have spoken to me in
dreams," Maegwin said loudly. "They put a song of the
elder days into my head and taught me to bring you here
into the rocky caverns where we would be safe. Then
Cuamh Earthdog, the god of the depths, led me to a secret
place that had not been seen since before Tethtain's
time—a place where the gods had a gift in store for us.
You!" She pointed at one of the scribes who had de-
scended to Mezutu'a with Eolair to copy the dwarrow's
maps- "Stand and tell the people what you saw."

The old man rose unsteadily, leaning for support on one
of his young pupils. "It was indeed a city of the gods,"
he quavered, "deep in the earth—bigger than all Hemy-
sadharc, set in a cavern wide as the bay at Crannhyr." He
threw his thin arms apart in a helpless attempt to indicate
the stone city's vastness. "There were creatures in that
place like none I have seen, whispering in the shadows."
He raised his hand as several of the onlookers made signs
against evil. "But they did us no harm, and even led us to
their secret places, where we did what the princess asked
us to do."

Maegwin gestured for the scribe to sit down. "The gods
showed me the city, and there we found things that will
help turn the tide of battle against Skali and his master,
Elias of Erkynland. Eolair has taken those gifts to our
allies—you all saw him go."

Heads nodded throughout the crowd. Among people as

360 Tad Williams

isolated as these earth-dwellers had become, the departure
of the Count of Nad Mullach on a mysterious errand had
been the subject of several weeks' worth of gossip.

"So twice the gods have spoken to me. Twice they
have been correct."

But even as she spoke, Maegwin felt a twinge of worry.
Was that really true? Hadn't she cursed herself for
misinterpreting—even at times blamed the gods them-
selves for sending her cruel, false signs? She paused, sud-
denly beset by doubt, but Diawen reached forward and
touched her shoulder, as if the scryer had heard her trou-
bled thoughts. Maegwin found the courage to go on.

"Now the gods have spoken to me—a third time, and
with the mightiest words of all. I saw Brynioch himself"
For surely, she thought, it must have been him. The
strange face and golden stare burned in her memory like
the afterimage of sun against the blackness of closed eye-
lids. "And Brynioch told me that the gods would send
help to Hemystir'"

A few of the audience, caught up in Maegwin's own
fervor, raised their voices in a cheer. Others, unsure but
hopeful, exchanged glances with their neighbors.

"Craobhan," Maegwin called. "Stand and tell our peo-
ple how I was found."

The old counselor got up with obvious reluctance. The
look on his face told all: he was a statesman, a practical
man who did not hold with such high-flown things as
prophecies and the gods speaking to princesses. The folk
gathered in the cavern knew that. For this reason, he was
Maegwin's master stroke.

Craobhan looked around the chamber. "We found Prin-
cess Maegwin on Bradach Tor," he intoned. His voice
could still carry powerfully despite his years; he had used
it to great effect in the service of Maegwin's father and
grandfather. "I did not see, but the men who brought her
down are known to me, and ... and trustworthy. She had
been three days on the mountain, but had taken no hurt
from the cold. When they found her she was .. ." he
looked helplessly at Maegwin, but saw nothing in her

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER                           361

stem face that would allow him to escape this moment,
"... she was in the grip of some deep, deep dream."

The gathering buzzed. Bradach Tor was a place of
strange repute, and it was stranger still that it should be
climbed by a woman during frozen winter.

"Was it just a dream?" Diawen said sharply from be-
hind Maegwin. Craobhan looked at her angrily, then
shrugged.

"The men said it was like no dream they had ever
seen," he said. "Her eyes were open, and she spoke as
though to someone who stood before her ... but nothing
was there but empty air."

"Who was she speaking to?" Diawen asked.

Old Craobhan shrugged again. "She ... was speaking
as though she addressed the gods—and she listened be-
times, as though they were speaking to her in turn,"

"Thank you, Craobhan," Maegwin said gently. "You
are a loyal and honest man. It is no wonder my father val-
ued you so highly." The old counselor sat down. He did
not look happy. "I know that the gods have spoken to
me," she continued. "I was given a sight of the place
where the gods dwell, of the gods themselves in their in-
vincible beauty, caparisoned for war."

"For war?" someone shouted. "Against who, my lady?
Who do the gods fight?"

"Not who," Maegwin said, raising an admonitory fin-
ger. "But for whom. The gods will fight for us." She
leaned forward, quelling the rising murmur of the crowd.
"They will destroy our enemies—but only if we give our
hearts to them wholly."

"They have our hearts, lady, they do!" a woman cried.

Someone else shouted: "Why have they not helped us
before now? We have always honored them."

Maegwin waited until the clamor died down. "We have
always honored them, it is true, but in the manner that
one honors an old relative, out of grudging habit. We
have never shown them honor worthy of their power,
their beauty, worthy of the gifts they have given our peo-
ple!" Her voice rose. She could feel again the nearness of
the gods; the sensation rose inside her like a spring of

362                   Tad Williams

clear water. It was such an odd, heady feeling that she
burst out laughing, which brought amazement to the faces
of the people around her. "No!" she shouted. "We have
performed the rites, polished the carvings, lit the sacred
fires, but very few of us have ever asked what more the
gods might wish as proof that we are worth their aid."

Craobhan cleared his throat. "And what do they want,
Maegwin, do you think?" He addressed her in a way that
seemed untowardly familiar, but she only laughed again.

"They want us to show our trust! To show our devo-
tion, our willingness to put our lives in their hands—as
our lives have been all along. The gods will help us, this
I have seen for myself—but only if we show that we are
worthy! Why did Bagba give cattle to men? Because men
had lost their horses fighting in the wars of the gods, in
the time of the gods' truest need."

Even as she spoke, it all suddenly became clear to
Maegwin- How right Diawen had been! The dwarrows,
the frightened Sitha-woman who had spoken through the
Shard, the frighteningly endless winter—it was all so
clear now!

"For you see," she cried, "the gods themselves are at
war! Why do you think that snow has fallen, that winter
has come and never left although more than a dozen
moons have changed? Why do ancient terrors walk the
Frostmarch—things not seen since Hem's day? Because
the gods are at war even as we are at war. As the soldier-
ing games of children ape the combats of warriors, so is
our small conflict beside the great war that rages in the
heavens." She took a breath and felt the god-feeling bub-
bling inside her, filling her with joyful strength. She was
sure now that she had seen the truth. It was bright as sun-
light to a new-wakened sleeper. "But just as the learning
of childhood is what shapes the wars of grown folk, so
does our strife here on the green earth affect the wars of
heaven. So if we wish the help of the gods, we must help
them in turn. We must be bold, and we must trust in their
beneficence. We must work the greatest magic against
darkness that we have."

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER                           363

"Magic?" a voice cried, an old man's distrustful rasp.
"Is that what the scryer woman's taught you?"

Maegwin heard Diawen's hiss of indrawn breath, but
she was feeling too bold for anger. "Nonsense!" she
shouted. "I do not mean the fumblings of conjurors. I
mean the sort of magic that speaks as loudly in heaven as
it does upon the earth. The magic of our love for
Hemystir and the gods. Do you wish to see our enemies
vanquished? Do you wish to walk your green land
again?"

'Tell us what we must do!" a woman near the front
shouted.

"I will." Maegwin felt a great sense of peace and
strength. The cavern had grown silent, and several hun-
dred faces peered intently up at her. Just before her, old
Craobhan's deep-lined, skeptical brow was creased with
anger and worry. Maegwin loved him at that moment, for
she saw in his defeated look the vindication of her suffer-
ing and the proof of the power of her dreams. "I will tell
you all," she said again, louder, and her voice echoed and
echoed again through the great cavern, so strong, so full
of triumphant certainty that few could doubt that they
were indeed hearing the chosen messenger of the gods.

A

Miramele and her companions lingered only a few mo-
ments to put Charystra ashore on an isolated dock in the
furthest outskirts of Kwanitupul. The innkeeper's violated
feelings were only partially soothed by the bag of coins
Isgrimnur tossed onto the weathered boards at her feet.

"God will punish you for treating an Aedonite woman
this way!" she cried as they rowed away. She was still
standing on the edge of the rickety dock, waving a fist
and shouting incomprehensibly, as their slow-sliding boat
nosed down a canal lined by twisted trees and she was
lost from view.

Cadrach winced. "If what we have experienced lately
has been God's way of showing His favor, I think I would

364

Tad Williams

be willing to try a little of His punishment, just for a

change."

"No blasphemy," Isgrimnur growled, leaning hard on
his oar. "We are still alive, against all reason, and still
free. That is indeed a gift."

The monk shrugged, unimpressed, but said no more.
They floated out into an open lagoon, so shallow that
stalks of marsh-grass poked from the surface and wavered
in the wind. Miriamele watched Kwanitupul slipping
away behind them. In the late afternoon light, the low
gray city seemed a collection of drifting flotsam that had
snagged on a sandbar, vast but purposeless. She felt a ter-
rible longing for some place to call home, for even the
most mindless and stifling routines of everyday life. At
the moment there was not a single scrap of charm left in
the idea of adventuring.

"There is still no one behind us," Isgrimnur said with
some satisfaction. "Once we reach the swamps, we will
be safe."

Tiamak, sitting in the bow of the boat, gave a curious,
strangled laugh. "Do not say such a thing." He pointed to
the right. "There, head for that small canal, just between
those two large baobab trees. No, do not talk like that.
You might attract attention."

"What attention?" asked the duke, irritated.
"They Who Breathe Darkness. They like to take men's
brave words and bring them back to them in fear."
"Heathen spirits," Isgrimnur muttered-
The little man laughed again, a sad and helpless giggle.
He slapped his hand against his bony thigh so that the
smack rang echoing across the sluggish water, then he so-
bered abruptly. "I am so ashamed. You people must think
me a fool. I studied with the finest scholars in
Perdruin—I am as civilized as any drylander! But now we
are going back to my home ... and I am frightened. Sud-
denly the old gods of my childhood seem more real than
ever."

Next to Miriamele, Cadrach was nodding in a coldly
satisfied way.

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWF.R                365

The trees and their raiment of clinging vines grew
thicker as the afternoon wore on, and the canals down
which Tiamak directed them grew progressively smaller
and less well-defined, full of thick weeds. By the time the
sun was scudding toward the leafy horizon, Camaris and
Cadrach—Isgrimnur was taking a well-deserved rest—
could hardly drag their oars through the mossy water.

"Soon we will have to use the oars as poles only."
Tiamak squinted at the murky waterway. "I hope that this
boat is small enough to go where we must take it. There
is no doubt we will soon have to find something with a
more shallow draft, but it would be good to be farther in,
so that there will be less chance our pursuers will dis-
cover what we have done."

"I don't have a cintis-piece left." Isgrimnur fanned
away the cloud of tiny insects that hovered around his
head. "What will we use to trade for another boat?"

"This one," Tiamak said. "We will not get anything so
sturdy in return, but whoever trades with us will know
that they can sell this in Kwanitupul for enough to buy
two or three fiatboats, and also a barrel of palm wine."

"Speaking of boats," Cadrach said, resting against his
sweep for a moment, "I can feel more water around my
toes than I like. Should we not stop soon and patch this
one, especially if we are condemned to keep it for a few
more days? I would not care to look for a camping place
on this mucky ground in the dark."

"The monk is right," Tiamak told Isgrimnur. "It is time
to stop."

As they glided slowly along, with the Wrannaman
standing in the bow inspecting the tangled coastline for a
suitable mooring place, Miriamele occasionally caught a
glimpse through the close-leaning trees of small, ram-
shackle huts. "Are those your people's houses?" she
asked Tiamak.

He shook his head, a slight smile curving his lips. "No,
lady, they are not. Those of my folk who must live in
Kwanitupul for their livelihood live in Kwanitupul. This
is not the true Wran, and to live in this place would be
worse for them than simply enduring the two seasons a

366 Tad Williams

year they spend in the city, then returning to their villages
after their money is earned. No, those who live here are
drylanders mostly, Perdruinese and Nabbanai who have
left the cities. They are strange folk who are not much
like their brethren, for many of them have lived long on
the edge of the marshes. In Kwanitupul they are called
'shoalers' or 'edge-hoppers,' and are thought to be odd
and unreliable." He smiled again, bashfully, as if embar-
rassed by his long explanation, then returned to his search
for a campsite.

Miriamele saw a wisp of smoke trailing upward from
one of the hidden houses, and wondered what it would be
like to live in such an isolated place, to hear no human
voice from the start of the day until the end. She looked
up at the overarching trees and their strange shapes, the
roots twisted like serpents where they ran down to the
water, the branches gnarled and grasping. The narrow wa-
tercourse, now shadowed from the dying sun, seemed
lined by lonely shapes that reached out as if to clutch at
the small boat and hold it fast, to pinion it until the waters
would rise and the mud and roots and vines would swal-
low it. She shivered. Somewhere in the shaded hollows, a
bird screeched like a frightened child.

12

Raven's Dance

At first the battle did not seem real to Simon. From his
position on the lower slopes of Sesuad'ra, the great ex-
panse of frozen lake lay before him like a marble floor,
and beyond it the snow-stippled downs stretched to the
snow-blanketed, wooded hills across the valley. Every-
thing was so small—so far away! Simon could almost
trick himself into believing that he had returned to the
Hayholt and was peering down from Green Angel Tower
on the busily harmless movements of castle folk.

From Simon's vantage point, the initial sally of
Sesuad'ra's defenders—meant (o keep Duke Fengbald's
troops out on the ice and away from the log barricade that
protected the entrance to the Sithi road—seemed a caper-
ing display of intricate puppetry. Men waved swords and
axes, then fell to the ice pierced by invisible arrows,
dropping as suddenly as if some titanic master had loosed
their strings. It all seemed so distant! But even as he mar-
veled at the miniature combat, Simon knew that what he
was watching was in deadly earnest, and that he would be
seeing it closer soon enough.

The rams and their riders were both growing restive.
Those of Simon's Qanuc troop whose hiding places did
not allow them a view of the frozen lake were calling
whispered questions to those who could see. The steamy
breath of the entire company hung close overhead. All
around, the branches of the trees shimmered with droplets
of melting snow.

Simon, as impatient as his trollish companions, leaned

368 Tad Williams

into Homefinder's neck. He inhaled her reassuring smell
and felt the warmth of her skin. He wanted so to do the
right thing, to help Josua and his other friends; at the
same time, he was mortally afraid of what might happen
down there on the glassy surface of the frozen lake- But
for now, he could only wait. Both death and glory would
have to be put off, at least for Simon and these small war-
riors.

He watched carefully, trying to make sense of the chaos
before him. The line of Fengbald's soldiers, which was
holding tightly to the sandy path laid for them by their
battle-sledges, rippled as the wave of defenders struck
them. But although they wavered, Fengbald's force held,
then struck back at their attackers, hitting and then dis-
persing the initial clump into several smaller groupings.
The leading company of Fengbald's soldiers then
swarmed around their attackers, so that the firm line of
the Duke's forces quickly became a number of actively
moving points, each small skirmish largely self-
contained. Simon could not help thinking of wasps clus-
tering around a scatter of scraps.

The muffled sounds of combat were rising. The faint
clanking as swords and axes struck armor, the dim bel-
lows of rage and terror, all added to the sense of remote-
ness, as though the battle were being fought beneath the
frozen lake instead of atop it.

Even to Simon's untrained eye, it quickly became obvi-
ous that the defenders' opening sally had failed. The sur-
vivors were breaking away from Fengbald's line, which
was still swelling as more and more of his army made its
way out onto the lake. Those of Josua's soldiers who
could pull free were skidding and crawling back over the
naked ice to the dubious safety of the barricade and the
wooded hillside.

Homefinder snorted beneath Simon's stroking hand and
wagged her head restively. Simon gritted his teeth. They
had no choice, he knew. The prince wished them to wait
until they were called, even if it looked as if all might be
lost before their time came.

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER                           369

Waiting. Simon let out an angry sigh. Waiting was so
hard....

A

Father Strangyeard was hopping about in an agony of
worry.

"Oh!" he said, almost slipping on the muddy earth.
"Poor Deomoth!"

Sangfugol reached out a hand and snagged the archi-
vist's sleeve, saving the priest from a long tumble down
the hillside.

Josua was standing upslope, peering down at the battle
site. His red Thrithings-horse, Vinyafod, stood nearby,
reins tied loosely around a low branch. "There!" Josua
could not keep the exultation from his voice. "I see his
crest—he is still on his feet!" The prince leaned forward,
teetering precariously. Below, Sangfugol made a reflexive
gesture to go toward him, as though the harper might
have to catch his master as he had rescued the priest.
"Now he has broken free!" Josua cried, relief in his
voice. "Brave Deomoth! He is rallying the men and they
are falling back, but slowly. Ah; God's Peace, I-love him
dearly!"

"Praise Aedon's name." Strangyeard made the sign of
the Tree. "May they all come back safely." He was
flushed with exertion and excitement, his eyepatch a
black spot atop the mottled pink-

Sangfugol made a bitter noise- "Half of them are lying
bloody on the ice, already. What is important is that some
of Fengbald's men are doing the same." He clambered
atop a stone and squinted down at the milling shapes. "I
think I see Fengbald, Josua!" he called.

"Aye," the prince said. "But has he taken the feint?"

"Fengbald is an idiot," Sangfugol replied. "He will
take it like a trout takes a shadfly."

Josua looked away from the battle for a moment, turn-
ing to the harper with a look of cool, if somewhat dis-
tracted, amusement. "Oh, he will, will he? I wish I had
your confidence, Sangfugol."

370

Tad Williams

The harper flushed. "I beg your pardon. Highness. I
only meant that Fengbald is not the tactician that you
are."

The prince returned his attention to the lake below.
"Don't waste time with flattery, harper—at this moment,
I fear I'm too busy to appreciate it- And don't make the
mistake of underestimating an enemy, either." He stared,
shading his eyes against the glare of the shrouded sun,
which was climbing behind the clouds. "Damnation! He
hasn't taken it, not entirely! There, see, he has only
brought part of his troop forward. The rest are still hud-
dled at the edge of the lake."

Embarrassed, Sangfugol said nothing. Strangyeard was
hopping up and down again. "Where is Deomoth? Oh,
curse this old eye!"

"Still falling back." Josua leaped down from his perch,
then made his way down the hill to where they stood.
"Binabik has not yet returned from Hotvig and I cannot
wait any longer. Where is Simon's boy?"

Jeremias, who had been crouching beside a toppled log,
trying to stay out of the way, now leaped to his feet.
"Here, Your Highness."

"Good. Go now, first to Freosel, then down the hill to
Hotvig and his riders. Tell them to make ready—that we
will strike now after all. They will hear my signal
shortly."

Jeremias bowed quickly, his face pale but composed,
then turned and dashed up the trail-

Josua was frowning. Down on the ice, Fengbald's army
of Erkynguardsmen and mercenaries indeed seemed to
be moving forward only hesitantly, despite their success
in the first engagement. "Welladay," said the prince,
"Fengbald has grown more cautious with his advancing
years and greater burdens. Damn his eyes! Still, we have
no choice but to pull the trapdoor shut on whatever of his
force we can catch." His laugh was sour. "We will leave
tomorrow for the Devil."

"Prince Josua!" gasped Strangyeard, so shocked that he
ceased hopping. He sketched another hasty Tree in the air
before him.

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

371

The hot breath of men and horses hung over the lake as
a mist. It was hard to see clearly for more than a few ells
in any direction, and even those men Deomoth could see
were dim and insubstantial, so that the clamor of combat
seemed to come from some ghost battle.

Deomoth caught the guardsman's downward stroke on
his hilt. The impact nearly shivered his blade loose from
his grip, but he managed to retain it in his tingling fingers
long enough to bring it up for a counterswipe. His stroke
missed, but slashed the guardsman's mount on an unpro-
tected legl The dappled horse shrieked and bounced back
a few steps, then lost its footing and tumbled to the
ragged ice with a crash and a spurt of powdery snow.
Deomoth reined in Vildalix; they danced away from the
fallen charger, who was thrashing wildly. Its rider was
trapped beneath, but unlike the horse, he was making no
noise.

Breath whistling in the confines of his helmet,
Deomoth raised his sword and hammered it against his
shield as loud as he could. His hornsman, one of the
young and untrained soldiers from New Gadrinsett, had
gone down in the first crush, and now there was no one
to blow the retreat.

"Hark to me!" Deomoth shouted, redoubling the clat-
ter. "Fall back, all men, fall back!"

As he looked around, his mouth filled with something
salty and he spat. A gobbet of red flew out through the
helmet's vertical slot and onto the ice. The wetness on his
face was blood, probably the wound he had gotten when
another of the guardsmen had dented his headgear. He
could not feel it—he never did feel such small hurts while
the fight was raging—but he offered a quick prayer to
Mother Elysia that the blood would not run into his eyes
and blind him at an important moment.

Some of his men had heard and were collapsing back
around his position. They were not true fighting men yet,
God knew, but so far they had shown themselves bravely
against a formidable line of Erkynguards. They were not

372

Tad Williams

meant to break Fengbald's leading force, but only to slow
them, and perhaps to lure them incautiously toward the
barricade and the first of Josua's surprises: New
Cadi-insert's few dependable archers and their small hoard
of arrows. Bowmen alone would not change the course of
this battle—the mounted knights on both sides were too
well-armored—but they would wreak some havoc, and
force Fengbald's men to think twice before launching an
unbridled assault against the base of Sesuad'ra. So far,
very few arrows had flown from either side, although a
few of Deomoth's makeshift troops had gone down in the
first moments of their assault with shafts quivering in
their throats or even punched through chain mail into a
chest or stomach. Now the fog caused by the rising sun
would make it even more difficult for Fengbald's men to
make use of their bows.

Thank God it is Fengbald we are fighting, Deomoth
thought. He was almost immediately forced to duck, sur-
prised by the flailing blade of a mounted guardsman who
appeared without warning out of the murk. The horse
clattered by, receding into insubstantiality once more.
Deomoth took a few quick, deep breaths-

Mounted knights and kems we can deal with, at least
for a while. Only Fengbald would be so foolhardy as to
besiege a fortified hill without a company or two of
longbowmen! They could have cut us all down in the first

moments.

Of course, for all his arrogance, Fengbald had not
proved quite as foolish as Josua and the others had hoped.
They had prayed that he would send at least a major force
of the Thrimings-men in first, trusting to their superior
horsemanship on the treacherous ice. The grasslanders
were fearsome fighters, but they loved the heroisim of in-
dividual combat. The prince had felt sure that a few net-
tling attacks from Deomoth's troop would lure the
mercenaries out of formation, where they would be more
easily dealt with, and which would also throw Fengbald's
advance into confusion. But they had all reckoned with-
out the sledges—and whose clever plan was that,
Deornoth could not help wondering—and the improved

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

373

footing brought by the blanket of sand had allowed the
duke to send in his disciplined Erkynguard.

There was a sound as of a swelling drum roll. Deomoth
looked up to see that the guardsman who had missed on
his first pass had finally turned his horse around—the
footing was so dreadful and necessitated such careful
movement by both sides that the entire battle had the look
of some strange underwater dance—and was now bearing
down on him out of the fog again, slowly this time, urg-
ing his horse forward at no more than a cautious walk.
Deomoth gave Vildalix a polite heel, bringing the bay
around to face the attacker, then lifted his sword. The
Erkynguardsman raised his in turn, but still continued his
approach at little more than a man's hiking pace.

It was strange to see the green livery of the Erkynguard
draping an enemy. It was stranger still to have so much
time to deliberate on the oddness of it while waiting for
that enemy to make his measured way across the ice. The
guardsman ducked a wild sword-swing from one of
Deomoth's comrades, a blow that flashed out of the mist
like a serpent's darting tongue—Josua's men were all
around, fighting desperately now to pull close enough to-
gether for an orderly retreat—and came on, undaunted.
Deomoth could not help wondering for a brief moment if
the face beneath this bold soldier's helm was one he
would recognize, someone he had drunk with, diced
with....

Vildalix, who despite his bravery seemed sometimes as
sensitive as flayed skin, took Deomoth's minute pull on
the reins and lurched heavily to one side just as the at-
tacker reached them, so that the guardsman's first stroke
scraped harmlessly across Deomoth's shield. Vildalix
then danced in place for a moment, trying to avoid step-
ping on the crumpled form of the rider who had earlier
gone down beneath his own mount, and thus Deomoth's
own return blow missed widely. The attacking guardsman
pulled up, his horse's legs spreading slightly as it skidded
in an attempt to make a sudden stop. Seeing his opening,
Deomoth dragged Vildalix around and went after him.
The Thrithings-horse, who had been trained on ice as

374

Tad Williams

Josua's men prepared, was able to turn fairly easily, so
that Deornoth caught up with the Erkynguard before he
had completed his own awkward revolution.

Deornoth's first blow caromed off the guardsman's
lifted shield, raising a brief plume of sparks, but he let the
sword's own momentum carry it around for a second
blow, rotating his wrists and leaning almost sideways ^n
the saddle so he would not be forced to break his grip. He
caught the green-liveried guardsman a powerful backhand
blow to the head just as the man lowered his shield once
more; the side of the Erkynguardsman's helmet crumpled
inward at a hideous angle. Blood already sluicing down
his neck and onto his bymie, the guardsman toppled out
of his saddle, tangling for a moment in his stirrups, then
clanged to the ice where he lay twitching feebly.
Deomoth turned away, pushing any regrets from his mind
with the ease of long experience. This bleeding hulk
might once have been someone he knew, but now any
Erkynguardsman was only an enemy, no more.

"Hark, men, hark!" Deomoth shouted, standing upright
in his stirrups so that he could better view their position
through the mist. "Follow me on the retreat! Careful as
you go!" It was hard to tell, but he thought he saw some-
thing more than half the force he had taken out now ring-
ing him round- He raised his sword high, then spurred
Vildalix in the direction of the great log barricades. An
arrow whipped past his head, then another, but the aim
was poor, or else the archers were confused by the mist.
Deornoth's men lifted a thin cheer as they rode.

A

"Where is Binabik?" Josua fumed. "He was to be my
messenger, but he has not come back from Hotvig." The
prince made a face. "God grant me patience, listen to me!
Perhaps something has happened to him." He turned to
young Jeremias, who stood by, panting. "And Hotvig said
Binabik left his side some time ago?"

"Yes, Highness. He said the sun has lifted a hand since
the troll left, whatever that means."

TO  GREEN   ANGEL  TOWER

375

"Damnable luck." Josua began pacing, but his eyes
never left the battle below. "Well, there is nothing for it.
I do not trust the call to carry so far, lad, so go to Simon
and tell him that if hears nothing by the time he has
counted five hundreds or so after Hotvig's men have rid-
den out, then he and the trolls are to rush in. Do you have
that?"

"If he doesn't hear the hom, wait to a count of five
hundreds after Hotvig appears, then rush in, yes." Jere-
mias considered before adding: "Your Highness."

"Fine, Go, then—run. We are at the time when mo-
ments matter." Josua waved him off, then turned to
Sangfugol. "And you are ready, too?"

"Yes, sire," the harper said. "I have been trained by the
best. I should have little difficulty wringing a few honk-
ing sounds out of something so simple as a horn."

Josua chuckled grimly. "There is something reassuring
about your insolence, Sangfugol. But remember, master
musician, you must do more than honk: you must play a
victory call."

*.

Simon was looking over the small company, mostly to
keep himself busy, when he suddenly realized that Sisqi
was not among the gathered trolls. He quickly went
among the Qanuc, checking every face but finding no
sign of Binabik's betrothed. She was their leader—where
could she have gone? After a moment's thought, Simon
realized that he had not seen her since the muster before
Leavetaking House.

Oh, Aedon's mercy, no, he thought desperately. What
will Binabik say? I've lost his beloved before the battle
even begins!

He turned to the nearest of the trolls. "Sisqi?" he asked,
trying to show by shrugs and gestures that he wished to
know her whereabouts. Two troll women looked at him
uncomprehendingly. Damn, that was what Binabik called
her. What was her full name? "Sis—Sisqimook?" he
tried. "Sisqinamok?"

3?6

Tad Williams

One of the women nodded urgently, pleased to have
understood. "Sisqinanamook."

"Where is she?" Simon could not think of the troll
words. "Sisqinanamook? Where?" He pointed around to
all sides and then shrugged again, trying to convey his
question. His small companions seemed to grasp his
meaning: after a long round of murmuring Qanuc-speech,
those nearest indicated to him with perfectly under-
standable gestures that they did not know where
Sisqinanamook had gone.

Simon was cursing roundly when Jeremias arrived.

"Hullo, Simon, isn't this glorious?" his squire asked.
Jeremias seemed quite excited. "It's just like what we
used to dream of back in the Hayholt."

Simon made a pained face. "Except we were hitting
each other with barrel staves, and those men down there
will use sharp steel instead. Do you know where Sisqi
is—you know, the one Binabik is going to marry? She
was supposed to be here with the other trolls."

"No, I don't, but Binabik's missing, too. Stop, though,
Simon—I have to give you Josua's message first." Jere-
mias proceeded to relay the prince's instructions, then du-
tifully ran through them a second time, just in case.

"Tell him that I'm ready ... that we're ready. We'll do
what we're supposed to. But Jeremias, I have to find
Sisqi. She's their leader!"

"No, you don't." His squire was complacent- "You've
become a trollish war chieftain now, Simon, that's all. I
have to run back to Josua. With Binabik gone, I'm his
chief messenger. It happens that way in battles." He said
it lightly, but with more than a touch of pride.

"But what if they won't follow me?" Simon stared at
Jeremias for a moment. "You seem very cheerful," he
growled. "Jeremias, people are being killed here. We may
be next."

**I know." He became serious. "But at least it's our
choice, Simon. At least it's an honorable death." A
strange look flitted over his face, twisting his features as
though he might suddenly burst into tears. "For a long
time, when I was ... under the castle ... a quick, clean

TO   GREEN   ANGEL  TOWER

377

death seemed like it would be a wonderful thing." Jere-
mias turned away, hunching his shoulders. "But I suppose
I must stay alive now. Leieth needs me as a friend—and
you need someone to tell you what to do." He sighed
and then straightened up, gave Simon an oddly flat smile
and a half-wave, then trotted back into the shrouding
greenery, disappearing in the direction from which he had
come. "Good luck, Simon—Sir Seoman, I mean."

Simon started to call after him, but Jeremias was al-
ready gone.

A

Binabik's return was abrupt and somewhat startling.
Josua heard a soft rustling noise and looked up to find
himself staring into the yellow eyes and sharp-toothed
maw of Qantaqa, panting on a rise just above him. The
troll, seated atop her back, pushed some branches away
from his round face and leaned forward. "Prince Josua,"
he said calmly, as though they were meeting at some
court function.

"Binabik!" Josua took a backward step. "Where have
you been?"

"I ask your pardoning, Josua." The troll slid off
Qantaqa and made his way down to the level place where
the prince stood. "I saw some of Fengbald's men who
were exploring where they should not be going. I fol-
lowed them." He gave Josua a significant look. "They
were looking for a place with better climbing. Fengbald is
not being so foolish as we were thinking—it is clear he is
knowing he may not dislodge us with this first attack."

"How many were there?"

"Not a great number. Six ... five,"

"You couldn't tell? How closely did you watch them?"

Binabik's gentle smile did not reach his eyes. "There
were six at first." He patted his walking-stick, and the
hollow tube and darts contained therein. "Then one was
falling down the hill again."

Josua nodded. "And the rest?"

"After they had been led away from the places they

378

Tad Williams

should not be, I left Sisqi behind for distracting them
while I went quickly up the hill. Some of the women of
New Gadrinsett came down to help us."

"The women? Binabik, you are not to place women
and children in danger."

The little man shook his head. "You know that they
will be righting just as bravely for saving their home as
any men—we have never known any other thing among
the Qanuc. But be of quieter heart. All they did was come
for helping Sisqi and myself in the rolling of some large
stones." He flattened his hand in a gesture of completion.
"Those men will be no danger to us any more, and their
searching will bring no reward for Fengbald."

Josua sighed in frustration. "I trust that at least you did
not drag my wife along to help roll your stones?"

Binabik laughed. "She was eager to go. Prince Josua,
that I will say- You have a wife of some fierceness—she
would make a good Qanuc bride! But Outrun was not al-
lowing her a step out of camp." The troll looked around,
"What is happening below? I could not easily be watch-
ing as I made my way back."

"Fengbald, as you said, was better prepared than we
expected. They have built some kind of sleds or carts that
roughen the ice so that the soldiers can move more easily.
Deornoth's attack was pushed back, but Fengbald's
Erkynguard did not chase him; they are still massing on
the lake. I am about to—but enough. You will see what I
am about to do."

"And do you need me to go to Hotvig?" Binabik asked.

"No. Jeremias has taken on your tasks while you were
introducing Fengbald's spies to the ladies of New
Gadrinsett." Josua smiled briefly. "Thank you, Binabik. I
knew that if you were not hurt or trapped, you would be
doing something important—but try to let me know next

time."

"Apologies, Josua. I was fearing to wait too long."
The prince turned and beckoned to Sangfugol, who
came quickly to his side. Father Strangyeard and Towser
were both standing solemnly, watching the battle, al-
though Towser seemed to be listing slightly, as if even the

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

379

deadly combat below was not enough excitement to keep
him from his midday nap much longer.

"Blow for Freosel," Josua said. "Three short bursts,
three long."

Sangfugol lifted the hom to his lips, puffed out his thin
chest, and blew. The call echoed down the wooded hill-
side, and for a moment the flurry of battle on the ice
seemed to slow. The harper gasped in another great
draught of air, then blew again. When the echoes died, he
gave the call a third time.

"Now," Josua said firmly, "we shall see how ready
Fengbald is for a real fight. Do you mark him down there,
Binabik?"

"I think I am seeing him, yes. In the red flapping
cape?"

"Yes. Watch and see what he does."

Even as Josua spoke, there was a sudden convulsion in
the front line of Fengbald's army. The clot of soldiers
nearest the wooden barricades abruptly stopped and
swirled back in disorder.

"Hurrah!" Strangyeard shouted and leaped; then, seem-
ing to remember his priestly gravity, he donned his look
of worried concern once more-'

"Aedon's Blood, see how they jump!" Josua said with
fierce glee. "But even this will not stop them for long.
How I wish we had more arrows!"

"Freosel will be making good use of those we are hav-
ing," Binabik said. " 'A well-aimed spear is worth three,'
as we say in Yiqanuc."

"But we must use the confusion Freosel's bowmen
have given us." Josua paced distractedly as he watched.
When a little time had passed, and he evidently could
bear the waiting no longer, he cried: "Sangfugol—
Hotvig's call, now!"

The trumpet blared again, two long, two short, two long.

*

The flight of arrows from Sesuad'ra's defenders caught
Fengbald's men by surprise: they spilled back in confu-

380 Tad Williams

sion, leaving several score of their fellows lying skewered
on the ice, some trying to crawl back across the slippery
surface, trailing smears of blood like the tracks of snails.
In the chaos, Deornoth and his remaining force were able
to make their escape.

Deomoth himself went back three times to help carry
the last of the wounded past the great wall of logs. When
he was sure there was no more he could do, he slumped
to the trampled mud in the shadow of the high barricade
and pulled off his helmet. The sounds of struggle still

raged close by.

"Sir Deomoth," someone said, "you are bleeding."

He waved the man away, disliking to be fussed over,
but took the piece of cloth that was offered to him.
Deomoth used the rag and a handful of snow to wipe the
blood from his face and hair, then probed at his head
wound with chilled fingers. It was only a shallow cut. He
was glad he had sent the man off to aid those in greater
need. A strip of the now bloodied cloth made an adequate
bandage, and the pressure as he knotted it helped to
soothe the ache in his head.

When he had finished looking over his other injuries—
all quite minor, none as bloody as the nick in his scalp—he
pulled his sword out of its scabbard. It was a plain blade,
the hilt leather-wrapped, the pommel a crude hawk's head
worn almost featureless by long handling. He wiped it
down with an unbloodied comer of the cloth, frowning in
displeasure at the new notches it had gained, however hon-
orably. When he had finished, he held it up to catch the
faint sunlight and squinted to make sure he had not left any
blood to gnaw at the honed edge.

This is no famous blade, he thought. It has no name,
but it has still served well for many years. Like me, I sup-
pose. He laughed quietly to himself; a few of the other
soldiers resting nearby looked at him. No one will remem-
ber me, I think, no matter how long the names of Josua
and Elias are spoken. But 1 am content with that. I do
what the Lord Usires would have me do—was He any less
humble ?

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER           381

Still, there were times when Deomoth wished that the
people of Hewenshire could see him now, see the way he
fought loyally for a great prince, and how that prince de-
pended on him. Was that too prideful for a good
Aedonite? Perhaps....

Another horn call shrilled from the hillside above, dis-
rupting his thoughts- Deomoth scrambled to his feet, anx-
ious to see what was afoot, and began to climb the
barricade. A moment later, he dropped down and went
back for his helmet.

Pointless to take an arrow between the eyes if I can
avoid it, he decided.

He and several other men carefully lifted themselves so
they could nose over the topmost logs and peer out
through the crude observation slots that Sludig and his
helpers had cut with their hand-axes. As they squeezed
into place, they heard a great shout: a company of riders
was breaking from the trees a short distance to the east,
heading out onto the ice and directly toward Fengbald's
rallying forces. There was something different about this
company, but in the confusion of mists and flailing men
and horses it took a moment to see what it was.

"Ride, Hotvig!" Deomoth shouted. The men beside
him picked up the cry, cheering hoarsely. As the
Thrithings-men pounded across the frozen lake, it quickly
became apparent that they were moving far more easily
and skillfully than Fengbald's men. They might almost
have been riding on firm ground, so sure was their horse-
manship.

"Clever Binabik," Deomoth breathed to himself. "You
may save us yet!"

"Look at them ride!" one of the other men called, a
bearded old fellow who had last joined a battle when
Deomoth was a swaddled baby. "Those troll-tricks work,
sure enough."

"But we are still far outnumbered," cautioned Deor-
noth. "Ride, Hotvig! Ride!"

In a matter of moments, the Thrithings-men were
sweeping down on Fengbald's guardsmen, the horses'
hooves making an oddly clangorous thunder on the ice.

382

Tad Williams

They struck the first lines of men like a club, smashing a
path through them without difficulty. The noise, the clash-
ing of weapon and shield, the shrieking of men and
horses, seemed to double in a moment. Hotvig himself,
his beard festooned with scarlet war-ribbons, was plying
his long spear as swiftly as an expert river-fisher; every
time he darted it forward it seemed to find a target, bung-
ing forth flaring sprays of blood as red as the silken knots
in his whiskers- He and his grasslanders sang as they
fought, a shouting chant with little tune but a horrible sort
of rhythm which they used to punctuate each thrust and
slash. They wheeled around Fengbald's men with amaz-
ing ease, as though the battle-hardened Erkynguardsmen
were swimming in mud. The leading edges of the duke's
forces wavered and fell back. The Thrithings-men's fierce
song grew louder.

A

"God's Eyes'" Fengbald screamed, waving his long
sword in purposeless fury, "hold your lines, damn you!"
He turned to Lezhdraka- The mercenary captain was star-
ing with slitted, feral eyes at Hotvig and his riders. "They
have some damnable Sithi magic," the duke raged.
"Look, they move across the ice as though they were on
a tourney field."

"No magic," Lezhdraka growled. "Look at their
horses' hooves. They wear some special shoe—see, the
spikes are flashing! Somehow your Josua has shod his
horses with metal nails, I think."

"Damn him!" Fengbald stood high in his stirrups and
looked around. His pale, handsome face was beaded with
sweat. "Well, it is a brave trick, but it is not enough. We
are still far too many for him, unless he has an army three
times that size hidden up there—which he has not. Bring
up your men, Lezhdraka. We will shame my Erkynguard
into giving a better account of themselves." He rode a lit-
tle way toward his leading forces and raised his voice in
a shriek. "Traitors! Hold your lines or you will go to the
king's gibbet!"

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

383

Lezhdraka grunted in disgust at Fengbald's frenzy, then
turned to his first company of Thrithings mercenaries,
who had been sitting stolidly in their saddles, caring little
for what happened until their own turn should come to
ply their trade. They all wore boiled leather cuirasses and
metal-rimmed leather helmets, the armor of the grass-
lands. At Lezhdraka's gesture, the large company of
scarred and silent men straightened. A light seemed to
kindle in their eyes.

"You carrion dogs," Lezhdraka shouted in his own
tongue, "listen! These stone-dwellers and their High
Thrithing pets think that because they have ice-shoes on
their horses, they will scare us off. Let us go and bare
their bones!" He spurred his horse forward, taking care to
stay on the path provided by one of the battle sledges.
With a single grim shout, his mercenaries fell in behind
him.

"Kill them all," Fengbald shouted, riding in circles be-
side their column and waving his sword. "Kill them all,
but especially, do not let Josua leave the field alive. Your
master. King Elias, demands his death!"

The mercenary captain stared at the duke with poorly-
hidden contempt, but Fengbald-was already spurring his
horse forward, screeching at his faltering Erkynguard. "/
care little for these stone-dweller quarrels," Lezhdraka
shouted to his men in the Thrithings-tongue, "but I know
something that idiot does not: a live prince will get us
better pay than Fengbald would ever give us—so I want
the one-handed prince alive. But if Hotvig or any other
whelp of the High Thrithing walks living from this field,
I will make you scum eat your own guts."

He waved again and the column surged forward. The
mercenaries grinned in their beards and patted their weap-
ons. The smell of blood was in the air—a very familiar
smell.

A

Deomoth and his men were struggling back into their
| battle array when Josua appeared, leading Vinyafod- Fa-

384

Tad Williams

ther Strangyeard and the harper Sangfugol straggled after
him, muddy and disarrayed.

"Binabik's ice-shoes have worked—or at least they
have helped us catch Fengbald off-guard," Josua called.

"We have been watching. Highness." Deornoth gave
the inside of his helmet another thump with his sword-
hilt, but the dent was too deep for such simple repairs. He
cursed and pulled it on anyway. There was nowhere near
enough armor to go around; New Gadrinsett had strained
to supply even what small weaponry and gear they had,
and if Hotvig's Thrithings-men had not brought their own
leather chestplates and headware, less than a quarter of
the defenders would have been armored. There were cer-
tainly no replacements available, Deomoth knew, except
those which could be gleaned from the newly dead. He
decided he would stick with his original helm, dented or

not.

"I am glad to see you ready," said Josua. "We must
press whatever advantage we have, before Fengbald's
numbers overwhelm us."

"I only wish we had more of the troll's boot-irons to
pass around." As he spoke, Deomoth strapped on his own
set, numbed hands fumbling awkwardly. He fingered the
metal spikes that now jutted from his soles. "But we have
used every piece of metal we could spare."

"Small price if it saves us, meaningless if it does not,"
Josua said. "I hope you gave preference to the men who
must fight on foot."

"I did," Deornoth replied, "although we had enough for
nearly all the horses, anyway, even after outfitting
Hotvig's grasslanders."

"Good," Josua said. "If you have a moment, help me
fit these on Vinyafod." The prince smiled an uncharacter-
istically straightforward smile. "I had the good sense to
put them aside yesterday."

"But my lord!" Deomoth looked up, startled. "What do
you want them for?"

"You do not think that I will watch the whole battle
from this hillside, do you?" Josua's smile vanished. He
seemed honestly surprised. "It is for my sake that these

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

385

brave men are fighting and dying down on the lake. How
could I not stand with them?"

"But that is precisely the reason." Deornoth turned to
Sangfugo) and Strangyeard, but those two merely looked
away shamefacedly. Deornoth guessed that they had al-
ready argued this point with the prince and lost. "If some-
thing happens to you, Josua, any victory will be a hollow
one."

Josua fixed Deomoth with his clear gray eyes. "Ah, but
that is not true, old friend. You forget: Vorzheva now
bears our child. You will protect her and our baby, just as
you promised you would. If we win today and I am not
here to enjoy it, I know that you will carefully and skill-
fully lead the people on from here. People will flock to
our banner—people who will not even know or care if I
am alive, but will come to us because we are fighting my
brother, the king. And Isom will soon return, I am sure,
with men of Hemystir and Rimmersgard. And if his fa-
ther Isgrimnur finds Miriamele—well, what more legiti-
mate name could you have to fight behind than King
John's granddaughter?" He watched Deomoth's face for a
moment. "But, here, Deornoth, do not put on such a seri-
ous face. If God means me to'overthrow my brother, not
all the knights and bowmen of Aedon's earth can slay me.
If He does not—well, there is no place to hide from one's
fate." He bent and lifted one of Vinyafod's feet. The
horse shifted anxiously but held its position. "Besides,
man, this is a moment when the world is delicately bal-
anced. Men who see their prince beside them know that
they are not being asked to sacrifice themselves for some-
one who does not value that sacrifice." He fitted the
leather sack with the stiffened bottom and protruding
spikes over Vinyafod's hoof, then wrapped the long ties
back and forth around the horse's ankle. "It is no use ar-
guing," he said without looking up.

Deornoth sighed. He was desperately unhappy, but a
part of him had known his prince might do this—indeed,
would have been surprised if he had not. "As you wish,
Highness."

"No, Deornoth." Josua tested the knot. "As I must."

386

Tad Williams
«

Simon cheered as Hotvig's riders smashed into
Fengbald's line. Binabik's clever stratagem appeared to
be working: the Thrithings-men, although still riding
more slowly than normal, were far swifter than their op-
ponents, and the difference in maneuverability was star-
tling. Fengbald's leading troops were falling back, forced
to regroup several hundred cubits back from the barri-
cade.

"Hit them!" Simon shouted. "Brave Hotvig!" The trolls
cheered, too, strange bellowing whoops. Their time was
fast approaching. Simon was counting silently, although
he had already lost track once or twice and had to guess.
So far, the battle was unfolding just the way Josua and the
others had said.

He looked at his strange companions, at their round
faces and small bodies, and felt an overwhelming affec-
tion and loyalty sweep through him. They were his re-
sponsibility, in a way. They had come far to fight in
someone else's cause—even if it might ultimately prove
to be everyone's cause—and he wanted them all to reach
their homes safely once more. They would be fighting
bigger, stronger men, but trolls were accustomed to fight-
ing in these wintry conditions. They, too, wore boot-irons,
but of a far more elaborate type than those Binabik had
taught the forge men to make. Binabik had told Simon
that among his people these boot-spikes were precious
now, since the trolls had lost the trade routes and the trad-
ing partners which had once made it possible to bring
iron into Yiqanuc; in this present era, each pair of boot-
spikes was handed down from parent to child, and they
were carefully oiled and regularly repaired. To lose a pair
was a terrible thing, for there was now almost no way to
replace them.

Their saddled rams, of course, had no need for such tri-
fles as iron shoes: their soft, leathery hooves would cling
to the ice like the feet of wall-walking flies. A flat lake
was little challenge when compared to the treacherous
frozen trackways of high Mintahoq.

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER                           387

"I come," someone said behind him. Simon turned to
find Sisqi looking up at him expectantly. The troll wom-
an's face was flushed and pearled with sweat, and the fur
jacket she wore beneath her leather jerkin was tattered
and muddy, as if she had crawled through the under-
growth.

"Where were you?" he said. He could see no trace of
a wound on her, and was grateful for that.

"With Binabik. Help Binabik fight." She lifted her
hands to mime some complicated activity, then shrugged
and gave up.

"Is Binabik well?" Simon asked.

She thought for a moment, then nodded. "Not hurt."

Simon took a deep breath, relieved. "Good." Before he
could say more, there was a flurry of movement down be-
low. Another group of shapes suddenly scrambled forth
from near the log barricade, hurrying to join the battle. A
moment later Simon heard the faint, mournful cry of a
hom. It blew a long note, then four short, then two long
blasts that echoed thinly along the hillside. His heart
leaped and he felt suddenly cold and yet tingling, as
though he had fallen into icy water. He had forgotten his
count, but it did not matter. That was the call—it was
time!

Despite his nervous excitement, he was careful not to
scrape Homefmder's side with his irons as he scrambled
into the saddle. Most of the Qanuc words Binabik had so
carefully taught him were blasted from his head.

"Now!" he shouted. "Now, Sisqi! Josua wants us!" He
drew his sword and waved it in the air, catching it for a
moment in a low-hanging tree branch. What was the word
for "attack"? M-something. He turned and caught Sisqi's
eye. She stared back, her small face solemn. She knew.
The troll woman waved her arm and called out to her
troops.

Everybody knows what happens now, he realized. They
don't need me to tell them anything.

Sisqi nodded, giving him permission.

"Nihut!" Simon shouted, then spurred down the muddy
trail.

388 Tad Williams

Homefinder's hooves skidded as they struck the frozen
lake, but Simon—who had ridden her unshod on the same
surface a few days before—was relieved when she
quickly caught her balance. The noise of conflict was
loud before them, and now his trollish comrades were
shouting too, bellowing strange war-cries in which he
could discern the names of one or two of the mountains
of Yiqanuc. The din of battle swiftly rose until it crowded
all other thoughts from his mind. Then, before it seemed
that he even had time to think, they were in the thick of
it.

Hotvig's initial attack had split Fengbald's line and
scattered it away from the safety of the sledge-scraped
track. Deomoth's soldiers—all but a few on foot—had
then surged out from behind the barricade and flung
themselves on those Erkynguard who had been cut off
from their own rearguard by Hotvig's action. The fighting
near the barricade was particularly fierce, and Simon was
startled to see Prince Josua in the thick of it, standing tall
in red Vinyafod's saddle, his gray cloak billowing, his
shouted words drowned in the confusion. Meanwhile,
though, Fengbald had brought up his Thrithings merce-
naries, who, instead of helping to stiffen the line behind
the retreating Erkynguardsmen, were swarming around
the broken column in their haste to engage Hotvig's
horsemen.

Simon's troop struck the mercenaries from the blind
side; those closest to the oncoming Qanuc had only a mo-
ment to look around in amazement before being skewered
by the short spears of the trolls. A few of the Thrithings-
men seemed to regard the onmshing Qanuc with a shock
that seemed closer to superstitious terror than mere sur-
prise. The trolls howled their Qanuc war-cries as they
charged, and whirled stones on oiled cords over their
head, which made a dreadful buzzing sound like a swarm
of maddened bees. The rams moved swiftly between the
slower horses, so that several of the mercenaries' mounts
reared and threw their masters; the trolls also used their
darting spears to poke at the horses' undefended bellies.

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER                           389

More than one Thrithings-man was killed beneath his
own toppled steed.

The din of battle, which at first had seemed to Simon
a great roaring, quickly changed as the conflict drew him
in, and became instead a kind of silence, a terrible hum-
ming quiet in which snarling faces and the steaming,
white-toothed and red-throated mouths of horses loomed
up from the mist. Everything seemed to move with a hor-
rible sluggishness, but Simon felt that he was moving
even more slowly. He swung his sword around, but al-
though it was mere steel, it seemed at that moment as
heavy as black Thom.

A hand-ax struck one of the troll-men beside Simon.
The small body was flung from the saddled ram and
seemed to tumble slowly as a falling leaf until it disap-
peared beneath Homefinder's hooves. Through the dron-
ing emptiness, Simon thought he heard a faint,
high-pitched shriek, like the cry of a distant bird.

Killed, he thought distractedly as Homefinder stumbled
and again found her footing. He was killed. A moment
later he had to fling his own blade up before him to ward
off a swordstroke from one of the mounted mercenaries.
It seemed to take forever for Ihe two swords to meet;

when they did, with a thin clink, he felt the shock down
'his arm and into his chest. Something brushed by him
from the other side. When he looked down, he saw that
his makeshift corselet had been torn and blood was rilling
; up in a wound along his arm; he could feel only a line of
' icy numbness from wrist to elbow. Gaping, he lifted his
; sword to strike back, but there was no one within reach.
He pulled Homefinder around and squinted through the
mist rising off the ice, then spurred her toward a knot of
tangled shapes where he could see some of the trolls at
bay.

After that the battle rose around him like a smothering
hand and nothing made very much sense. In the midst of
the nightmare, he was struck in the chest by someone's
shield and tumbled from his saddle. As he scrambled to
•find purchase, he quickly realized that even shod with
^Binabik's magic spikes, he was still a man struggling for

390 Tad Williams

footing on a glassy sheet of ice. By luck, the reins had
stayed tangled around his hand so that Homefinder did
not bolt, but this same luck almost killed him-

One of the mounted Thrithings-men came out of the
murk and pressed Simon backward, trapping him against
Homefmder's flank. The gaunt swordsman had a face so
covered with ritual scars that the skin showing beneath
his helm looked like tree bark. Simon was in a terrible
position, his shield arm still snagged in the reins so that
he could barely get half of his shield between himself and
his attacker. The grinning mercenary wounded him twice,
a shallow gouge along his sword arm parallel to his first
blooding of the day and a stab in the fat part of his thigh
below his mail shirt. He would almost certainly have
killed Simon in a few more moments, but some-
one else came up suddenly out of the fog—another
Thrithings-man, Simon noted with dazed surprise—and
accidentally collided with Simon's adversary, knocking
the man's horse toward Simon and pushing the mercenary
part of the way out of his saddle. Simon's half-desperate
thrust, more in self-defense than anything else, slid up the
man's leg and into his groin; he fell to the ground, blood
fountaining from his wound, then screamed and writhed
until his convulsions shook his helmet from his head. The
man's thin, staring-eyed face, contorted with pain,
brought back to Simon a Hayholt memory of a rat that
had fallen into a rain barrel. It had been horrible to see it
paddling desperately, teeth bared, eyes bulging. Simon
had tried to save it, but in its terror the rodent had
snapped at his hand, so he had run away, unable to bear
watching it drown. Now an older Simon stared at the
shrieking mercenary for a moment, then stepped on his
chest to stop him rolling and pushed his sword blade into
the man's throat, holding it there until all movement had
stopped.

He felt curiously light-headed. Several long moments
passed during which he tore loose the corpse's baggy
sleeve and cinched it tightly around the wound in his own
leg. It was only when he had finished and put his foot
into Homefmder's stirrup that he realized what he had

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER

391

just done. His stomach heaved, but he had not made the
mistake of eating that morning. After a brief pause he was
able to drag himself up into the saddle.

Simon had thought he would be a sort of second-in-
command of the trolls, Josua's hand among the prince's
Qanuc allies, but he quickly discovered that it was hard
enough work just to stay alive.

Sisqi and her diminutive troops were scattered all over
the misty battlefield. At one point he had managed to find
the area where they were most concentrated, and for a
while he and the trolls had stood together—he saw Sisqi
then, still alive, her slim spear as swift as a wasp sting,
her round face set in a mask so fierce she looked like a
tiny snow-demon—but at last the ebb and flow of combat
had broken them apart again. The trolls did not do their
best fighting in an orderly line, and Simon quickly saw
that they were more useful when they moved quickly and
unobtrusively among Fengbald's bigger horsemen. The
rams seemed sure-footed as cats, and although Simon
could see many small shapes of Qanuc dead and wounded
scattered here and there among the other bodies, they
seemed to be giving as good as they were getting, and
perhaps better.

Simon himself had survived several more combats, and
had killed another Thrithings-man, this time in a more or
less fair fight.

It was only as he and this other were hacking at each
other that Simon abruptly realized that to these enemies
he was no child. He was taller than this particular merce-
nary, and in his helmet and mail-shirt, he doubtless
seemed a large and fearsome fighter. Abruptly heartened,
he had renewed his attack, driving the Thrithings-man
backward. Then, as the man stopped and his horse came
breast to breast with Homefinder, Simon remembered his
lessons from Sludig. He feinted a clumsy swing and the
mercenary seized the bait, leaning too far forward with
his return stroke. Simon let the man's sword carry him
well off-balance, then slammed his shield against the
man's leather helm and followed with a sword thrust that

392                   Tad Williams

slid between the two halves of the man's chest armor and
into his unprotected side. The mercenary stayed in his
saddle as Simon pulled Homefinder back, tugging loose
his sword, but before Simon turned away his opponent
had already fallen awkwardly to the bloody ice-
Panting, Simon had looked around him and wondered
who was winning.

Whatever beliefs about the nobility of war that Simon
still retained died during that long day on the frozen lake.
In the midst of such terrible carnage, with fallen friends
and enemies alike scattered about, maimed and bloodied,
some even made faceless by terrible wounds; with the
crying and pleading of dying men ringing in his ears,
their dignity ripped away from them; with the air rank
with the stenches of fear-sweat, blood, and excrement, it
was impossible to see warfare as anything other than
what Morgenes had once termed it: a kind of hell on earth
that impatient mankind had arranged so it would not have
to wait for the afterlife- To Simon, the grotesque unfair-
ness of it was almost the worst of all. For every armored
knight dragged down, half a dozen foot-soldiers were
slaughtered. Even animals suffered torments that should
not have been visited on murderers and traitors. Simon
saw screaming horses, hamstrung by a chance blow, left
to roll on the ice in agony. Although many of the horses
belonged to Fengbald's troops, no one had asked them if
they wanted to go to war; they had been forced to it, just
as had Simon and the rest of the folk of New Gadrinsett.
Even the king's Erkynguard might have wished to be
elsewhere, rather than here on this killing ground where
duty brought them and loyalty prisoned them. Only the
mercenaries were here by choice. To Simon, the minds of
men who would come to this of their own will were sud-
denly as incomprehensible as the thoughts of spiders or
lizards—less so, even, for the small creatures of the earth
almost always fled from danger. These were madmen, Si-
mon realized, and that was the direst problem of the
world: that madmen should be strong and unafraid, so
that they could force their will on the weak and peace-

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER                           393

loving. If God allowed such madness to be, Simon could
not help thinking, then He was an old god who had lost
His grip.

The sun was vanished high above, hiding behind
clouds: it was impossible to tell how long the battle had
raged when Josua's hom blew again. This time it was a
summons note that sliced through the misty air. Simon,
who did not think he had ever been wearier in his life,
turned to the few trolls nearby and shouted: "Sosa!
Come!"

A few moments later he nearly ran down Sisqi, who
stood over her slaughtered ram, her face still strangely
emotionless. Simon leaned toward her and extended his
hand. She grasped it in her cold dry fingers and pulled
herself up to his stirrup. He helped her into the saddle.

"Where is Binabik?" she asked him, shouting above the
din.

"I don't know. Josua is calling us. We go to Josua
now."

The horn blew again. The men of New Gadrinsett were
falling back rapidly, as though they could not have fought
a moment longer—which might not have been far from
the truth—but they were retreating so swiftly that they
seemed almost to evaporate around Simon, like the de-
posited foam of a sea-wave vanishing into the beach.
Their departure left a knot of half a dozen trolls and a
couple of Deomoth's foot-soldiers encircled by a ring of
mounted Erkynguardsmen some fifty ells out on the ice.
Without help, Simon knew, the defenders would be
smothered. He looked around at the small company and
grimaced. Too few to do any good, certainly. And those
trolls had heard the retreat just as Simon and the others
had—was it his duty to rescue everyone? He was tired
and bleeding and frightened, and sanctuary was only a
few moments away—he had survived, and that was al-
most a miracle!—but he knew he could not leave those
brave folk behind.

"We go there?" he said to Sisqi, pointing to the clump
of beleaguered defenders.

394

Tad Williams

She looked and nodded wearily, then screamed some-
thing to the few surrounding Qanuc as Simon pulled
Homefinder around and moved toward the Erkynguards at
a slithering trot. The trolls fell in behind. There were no
howls this time, no singing: the little company rode in the
silence of utter exhaustion.

And then there was another nightmare of hacking and
slashing. The top of Simon's shield was smashed by a
sword blow, splinters of painted wood flying through the
air. Several of his own blows struck against solid ob-
jects, but the chaos prevented him knowing what he had
hit. The encircled trolls and men, seeing that help had
come, redoubled their effort and managed to cut their way
out, although at least one more of the Qanuc fell. His
blood-spattered ram, when it had shaken its dead master's
boot loose from the stirrup, leaped away from the corpse
and ran off across the lake as though pursued by demons,
zigzagging wildly until it vanished into the darkening
mist. The weary Erkynguards, who after the initial mo-
ments seemed no more willing to prolong the struggle
than Simon and his company, fought fiercely but gave
ground, trying to herd Simon and the rest back toward the
strength of Fengbald's forces. Simon finally saw an open-
ing and shouted to Sisqi. With a last convulsion of sol-
diers and horses and trolls and rams, Simon's company
broke away from the Erkynguards and fled toward
Sesuad'ra and the waiting barricades.

Josua's horn was blowing again as Simon and the
trolls—less than two score gathered together, he noted
with dismay—reached the great wall of logs at the base of
the hill-trail. Many of Sesuad'ra's other defenders were
around them, and even those who were unwounded
looked as beaten down and gray as dying men. A few of
Hotvig's Thrithings-folk, however, were singing hoarsely,
and Simon saw one of them had what looked like a pair
of bloody heads dangling from his saddle-hom, bouncing
to the horse's strides.

An immense feeling of relief struck Simon as he saw
Prince Josua himself standing before the barricade, wav-
ing Naidel in the air like a banner and shouting to the re-

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER

395

turning combatants. The prince was grim, but his words
were meant to be heartening.

"Come on," he cried. "We have given them a taste of
their own blood! We have showed them some teeth! Back
now, back—they will come no more this day!"

Again, even through the chill that had settled on his
heart like a frost, Simon felt a deep and loving loyalty to-
ward Josua—but he also knew that the prince had little
left to offer except brave words. Sesuad'ra's defenders
had nearly held their own against better trained and better
equipped forces, but they could hardly match Fengbald
body for body—the duke had almost three times as many
men—and now any element of surprise, such as Binabik's
boot-irons, had been played to its utmost. From here on,
the war would be one of attrition, and Simon knew that
he would be on the losing side.

On the ice behind them the ravens were already feeding
on the fallen. The birds hopped and pecked and argued
raucously among themselves. Half-hidden by the mist,
they might have been tiny black demons come to gloat at
the destruction.

Sesuad'ra's defenders limped up the hillside, leading
their panting mounts- Although-he felt curiously numb,
Simon was still pleased to see that more of the Qanuc had
survived than just those he and Sisqi had led off the ice.
These other survivors rushed forward to greet their kin
with cries of happiness, although there were sounds of
keening sorrow, too, as the trolls counted their losses.

For Simon, an even greater joy came when he saw
Binabik standing with Josua. Sisqi saw him, too. She
leaped down from Simon's saddle and rushed to her be-
trothed. The two of them embraced at Josua's side, heed-
less of the prince or anyone else.

Simon watched them for a moment before staggering
on. He knew he should look for his other friends, but at
the moment he felt so battered and wrung out that it was
as much as he could do just to put one foot before the
other. Someone walking beside him passed him a cup of
wine. When he had drunk it off and handed the cup back,
he took a few limping steps up the hill to where the

396

Tad Williams

campfires had been lit. Now that the day's fighting had
ended, some of the women of New Gadrinsett had come
down to bring food and to help care for the wounded.
One of them, a young girl with stringy hair, handed Si-
mon a bowl of something that faintly steamed. He tried to
thank her, but could not summon the strength to speak.

Although the sun was just now touching the western
horizon and the day was still quite light, Simon had no
sooner finished his thin soup than he found himself lying
on the muddy ground, still wearing all of his armor but
for his helm, his head cushioned on his cloak. Home-
finder stood nearby, cropping at the few thin stalks of
grass that had survived the general trampling. A moment
later Simon felt himself sliding down toward sleep. The
world seemed to tilt back and forth around him, as though
he lay on the deck of some huge, slow-rolling ship.
Blackness was coming on fast—not the black of night,
but a deep and smothering dark that welled up from in-
side him. If he dreamed, he knew, for once it would not
be of towers or giant wheels. He would see screaming
horses, and a rat drowning in a rain barrel.

«

Isaak, the young page, leaned close to the brazier, try-
ing to absorb some warmth. He was chilled right through.
Outside, the wind strummed on the ropes and poked at the
rippling walls of Duke Fengbald's vast tent as though
seeking to uproot it and carry it away into the night. Isaak
wished he had never been forced to leave the Hayholt.

"Boy!" Fengbald cried. There was an edge of violence
in his voice, barely contained. "Where is my wine?"

"Just mulling. Lord," Isaak said. He took the iron out
of the pitcher and hurried to replenish the duke's goblet.

Fengbald ignored him as he poured, turning his atten-
tion to Lezhdraka, who stood by scowling, still dressed in
his bloodied leather armor. By contrast, the duke was
bathed—Isaak had been forced to heat innumerable pots
of water on the one small bed of coals—and wore a robe
of scarlet silk. He had put on a pair of doeskin slippers,

TO GREEN ANOEL TOWER

397

and his long, black hair hung on his shoulders in wet
ringlets. "I will listen to no more of this nonsense," he
told the mercenary captain.

"Nonsense?" Lezhdraka snarled. "You say that to
me! I saw the magic folk with my own eyes, stone-
dweller!"

Fengbald's eyes narrowed. "You had better leam to
speak more respectfully, plainsman."

Lezhdraka clenched his fists, but kept his arms at his
side. "Still, I saw them—you did, too."

The duke made a noise of disgust. "I saw a troop of
dwarfs—freaks, such as can be seen tumbling and caper-
ing before most of the thrones of Osten Ard. Those were
not the Sithi, whatever Josua and this scrub-woman Geloe
might claim."

"Dwarfs or fairy-folk I cannot prove, but that other is
no ordinary woman," Lezhdraka said darkly. "Her name
is well-known in the grasslands—well-known and well-
feared. Men who go into her forest do not return."

"Ridiculous." Fengbald drained his cup, "I do not
quickly mock the dark powers ..." he trailed off, as
though some uncomfortable memory was clamoring for
attention, "... I do not mock, but neither will I be
mocked. And I will not be frightened by conjuring tricks,
however they may affect superstitious savages."

The Thrithings-man stared at him for a moment, his
face suddenly gone serenely cold. "Your master, from
what you have said before, has dabbled much in what you
call 'superstition.'"

Fengbald's return glance was equally chilly. "I call no
man master. Elias is the king, that is all." The moment of
imperiousness quickly dissolved. "Isaak!" he called petu-
lantly. "More wine, damn you." As the page scurried to
serve him, Fengbald shook his head. "Enough quibbling.
We have a problem, Lezhdraka. I want to solve it."

The mercenary chief folded his arms. "My men do not
like the idea of Josua having magical allies," he growled,
"—but do not fear. They are not womanish. They will
fight anyway. Our legends have long told us that fairy-

398

Tad Williams

blood spills just as man-blood does. We proved that to-
day."

Fengbald made an impatient gesture. "But we cannot
afford to beat them this way. They are stronger than I
thought. How can I return to Elias with most of his
Erkynguard dead at the hands of a few cornered peas-
ants?" He tapped his finger on the rim of his goblet. "NQ,
there are other ways, ways that will assure that I return to
Erkynland in triumph."

Lezhdraka snorted- 'There are no other ways. What,
some secret track, some hidden road as you talked of be-
fore? Your spies did not come back, I notice. No, the only
way now is the way we have started. We will beat them
down until none are left."

Fengbald was no longer paying attention. His gaze had
shifted to the door flap of the tent and a soldier who stood
there, unsure of whether to come in. "Ah," the duke said.
"Yes?"

The soldier dropped to one knee. 'The captain of the
guard has sent me. Lord ..."

"Good." Fengbald settled back in his chair. "And you
have brought with you a certain person, yes?"

"Yes, Lord."

"Bring him in, then wait outside until I summon you
again."

The soldier went, trying to hide a look of dismay at
having to stand outside the tent in the jagged wind.
Fengbald threw a mocking glance toward Lezhdraka.
"One of my spies has come back, it appears."

A moment later the tent flap opened again- An old man
stumbled in, his ragged clothes speckled with snowflakes.

Fengbald grinned hugely. "Ah, you have returned to
us! Helfgrim, is it not?" The duke turned to Lezhdraka,
his good humor returning as he played out his little show.
"You remember the Lord Mayor of Gadrinsett, don't
you, Lezhdraka? He left us for a while to go a-visiting,
but now he has returned." The duke's voice became
harsh. "Did you get away unseen?"

Helfgrim nodded miserably. "Things are confused. No
one has seen me since the battle started. There are others

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

399

missing, too, and bodies still lost on the ice and in the for-
est along the hill's base."

"Good." Fengbald snapped his fingers, pleased. "And
of course you have done what I asked?"

The old man lowered his head. "There is nothing,
Lord."

Fengbald stared at him for a moment. Color rose in the

duke's face and he began to stand, then sat down again,

clenching his fists. "So. You seem to have forgotten what

I told you."

"What is all this?" Lezhdraka asked, irritated.
The duke ignored him. "Isaak," he called, "fetch the

guard."

When the shivering soldier had come in, Fengbald
summoned him to his side, then whispered a few words
in his ear. The soldier went out through the flap once
more-

"We will try again," Fengbald said, turning his atten-
tion back to the Lord Mayor. "What did you find out?"

Helfgrim could not seem to meet his eyes. The old
man's weak-chinned, reddish face worked as though with
some barely hidden grief. "Nothing of use, my lord," he
said at last.

Fengbald had evidently gained control of his anger, for
he only smiled tightly. A few moments later, the tent flap
bulged once more. The guard came in, accompanied this
time by two more guardsmen. They were escorting a pair
of women, both of middle years, with threads of gray in
their dark hair, both of them grimy and dressed in thread-
bare cloaks. The ashen, fearful expressions of the women
changed to startlement as they saw the old man who
cringed before Fengbald.

"Father!" one of them cried.

"Oh, merciful Usires," the other said, and made the
sign of the Tree.

Fengbald surveyed the scene coolly. "You seemed to
have forgotten who holds the whip hand, Helfgrim. Now,
let me try again. If you lie to me, I will have to cause
I, your daughters pain, much as it troubles my Aedonite

400

Tad Williams

conscience. Still, it will be your conscience that will suf-
fer most, for it will be your fault." He smirked. "Speak."
The old man looked at his daughters, at the terror on
their faces. "God forgive me," he said. "God forgive me

for a traitor!"

"Don't you do it. Father," one of the women cried. The
other daughter was sobbing helplessly, her face buried in

the sleeve of her cape.

"I cannot do other." Helfgrim turned to the duke.
"Yes," he said quaveringly. "There is another way onto
the hill, one that only a few of the folk there know. It is
another old Sithi track. Josua has put a guard onto it, but
only a token force, since the bottom of it is hidden by
overgrowth. He showed it to me when we were planning

his defense."

"A token force, eh?" Fengbald grinned and looked tri-
umphantly at Lezhdraka. "And this track, it is wide
enough for how many?"

Helfgrim's voice was so low as to be almost inaudible.
"A dozen could march abreast, once the first few cubits
of brambles are cleared away."

The mercenary captain, who had listened quietly for a
long time, now stepped forward. He was angry, and his
scars showed white against his dark face. "You are too
trusting," he snarled at Fengbald. "How do you know this
is no trap? How do you know that Josua will not be wait-
ing for us with his whole army?"

Fengbald was unmoved. "You grasslanders are too
simple-minded, Lezhdraka—did 1 not tell you that be-
fore? Josua's army will be busy trying to fight off our
frontal assault tomorrow—far too busy to spare any more
soldiers than his token force—when we go to make our
surprise visit on Helfgrim's other road. We will take a siz-
able company. And just to make sure that there is no
treachery, we will take the Lord Mayor with us."

At this, the two women burst into tears. "Please, do not
take him into battle," one said desperately. "He is but an

old man'"

"That is true." Fengbald appeared to consider the point.
"And hence he might not be afraid to die, if there is some

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

401

kind of trap—if Josua's force is more than token. So we
will take you, too."

Helfgrim leaped up. "No! You cannot risk their lives'
They are innocent!"

"And they will be safe as doves in a dovecote,"
Fengbald grinned, "as long as your story has been true.
But if you have tried to betray me, they will die. Quickly,
but painfully."

The old man begged him again, but the duke slouched
back in his chair, unmoved. At last the Lord Mayor went
to his daughters. "It will be well." He patted them awk-
wardly, inhibited by the presence of cruel strangers. "We
will be together. No harm will come." He turned to
Fengbald, anger showing beneath his trembling features;

for a moment his voice almost lost its quaver. "There is
no trap, damn you—you will see—but there are a few
dozen men, as I said. I have betrayed the prince for you.
You must show honor toward my children, and keep them
out of danger if there is fighting. Please."

Fengbald waved his hand expansively. "Never fear. I
promise on my honor as a nobleman that when we hold
this dreadful hill and Josua is de.ad, you and your daugh-
ters will go free. And you will tell those you meet that
Duke Fengbald keeps his bargains." He rose and gestured
to the guards. "Now take them all three away—and keep
them separate from the rest of their folk."

After the prisoners had been removed, Fengbald turned
to Lezhdraka. "Why so silent, man? Can you not admit
you were wrong—that I have solved our problem?"

The Thrithings-man seemed to want to argue, but in-
stead reluctantly nodded his head. "These stone-dwellers
are soft. No Thrithings-man would betray his people for
: the sake of two daughters."

Fengbald laughed. "We stone-dwellers, as you call us,
treat our women differently than you louts do." He
walked to the brazier and warmed his long hands over the
coals. "And tomorrow, Lezhdraka, I shall show you
how this stone-dweller treats his enemies—especially
.those who have defied him as Prince Josua has." He

402

Tad Williams

narrowed his lips "That cursed fairy-hill wilt run red

with blood."

He stared into the gleaming embers, a smile curling the
corners of his mouth The wind wailed outside and
rubbed against the tent cloth like an animal.

13

Tfte Nest Bwfders

Tiamak Stared at the still water. His mind was only
half on his task, so when the fish appeared, a dark shadow
flitting between the water lilies, the Wrannaman's strike
was far too late. Tiamak stared down at the handful of
dripping vegetation in disgust and dropped the clump of
weeds back into the muddied water. Any fish in the vicin-
ity would be long gone now.

They Who Watch and Shape, he thought miserably, why
have you done this to me?

He moved closer to the edge of the waterway and
sloshed as delicately as he could down to the next back-
water, then set himself in place to begin his wait once
more.

Ever since he had been a small boy, it seemed, he had
gotten less than he wanted. As the youngest of six chil-
dren, he had always felt that his brothers and sisters ate
better than he did, that when the bowl came at last to
Tiamak, there was little left. He had not grown up as large
as any of his three brothers or his father Tugumak, nor
had he ever been able to catch fish as well as his swift
sister Twiyah, or find as many useful roots and berries as
his clever sister Rimihe. When at last he had found some-
thing he could do better than anyone else—namely, mas-
ter the drylander skills of reading and writing, and even
leam to speak the drylander tongues—this also proved
too small a gift. This scurrying after the knowledge of
drylanders made scant sense to his family, or to the oth-
er residents of Village Grove. When he went away to

404

Tad Williams

Perdruin to study in a drylander school, were they proud?
Of course not. Despite the fact that no other Wrannaman
in memory had done it—or perhaps because of that—his
family could not understand his ambitions. And the
drylanders themselves, all but a very few, were openly
scornful of his gifts. The indifferent teachers and mocking
students had let young Tiamak know in no uncertain
terms that no matter how many scrolls and books and
learned discussions he devoured, he would never be any-
thing better than a savage, a performing animal who had
mastered a clever trick.

So it had been for all of his life until this fatal year, his
only meager comforts found in his studies and the occa-
sional correspondence of the Scrollbearers. Now, as if
They Who Watch and Shape sought to pay all back in a
single season, everything that came to him was too
much—far, far too much.

This is how the gods mock us, he thought bitterly. They
take our fondest wish. then grant it in such a way that we
beg to be released from it. And to think that I had stopped
believing in them!

They Who Watch and Shape had set the trap neatly
enough, of that there was no doubt. First they had forced
him to choose between his kin and his friends, then they
had sent the crocodile that forced him to fail his kin. Now
his friends needed to be conducted through the vast
marshlands, in fact depended on him for their very lives,
but the only safe route would take him back through Vil-
lage Grove, back to the people he had forsaken. Tiamak
only wished that he himself could have learned to build
such a faultless snare—he would have eaten crabs for
supper every night!

He stood hip-deep in the greenish water and pondered.
What could he do? If he returned to his village, his shame
would be known to all- It might even be possible that they
would not let him go again, holding him as a traitor
against the clan. But if he tried to avoid the wrath of the
villagers, he would have to go leagues out of the way to
find a suitable boat. The only other villages close to this
end of the Wran, High Branch Houses, Yellow Trees, or

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER

405

Flower-in-the-Rock, were all farther to the south. To go to
one would mean leaving the main arterial waterways and
crossing some of the most dangerous stretches of the en-
tire marsh. Still, there was no choice: they had to stop in
Village Grove or one of the farther settlements, for with-
out a flatboat Tiamak and his companions would never
reach the Lake Thrithing. As it was, their present craft
was leaking badly. They had already been forced to make
several dangerous trips across the unpredictable mud,
carrying the boat around places in the waterway that were
too shallow.

Tiamak sighed. What was it that Isgrimnur himself had
said? Life seemed nothing but difficult choices these
days—and he was right.

There was a flirt of shadow between his knees. Tiamak
swiftly darted a hand down and felt his fingers close
around something small and slippery. He lifted it high,
holding tightly. It was a fish, a pinch-eye, although not a
very large one. Still, it was better than no fish at all- He
turned and pulled up the cloth sack that floated beside
him, anchored to a thick root. He dropped the wriggling
thing in, tightened the drawstring, then lowered the sack
back into the water. A good" omen, perhaps. Tiamak
closed his eyes to make a short prayer of thanks, hoping
that the gods, like children, could be confirmed in good
behavior by praise. When he had finished, he gave his at-
tention back to the green water once more.

A

Miriamele was doing her best to keep the fire going,
but it was difficult. Since entering the marshes they had
found nothing that resembled dry wood, and the small
blazes they had been able to light burned fitfully at best.
She looked up as Tiamak returned. His thin brown face
was closed, and he only nodded as he put down a leaf-
wrapped bundle, then continued to where Isgrimnur and

^ the others were working on the boat. The Wrannaman
seemed very shy: he had said only a few words to

: Miriamele in the two days since they had left Kwanitupul.

406 Tad miiams

She wondered briefly if he might be embarrassed by his
lilting Wrannaman accent. Miriamele dismissed the
thought: Tiamak spoke the Westerling tongue better than
most people who had grown up with it, and Isgrimnur's
thick consonants and Cadrach's musical Hemystiri vow-
els were far more noticeable than the slight up and down
quality of the marsh man's speech.

Miriamele unbundled the fish Tiamak had brought and
gutted them, wiping her knife clean on the leaves before
sheathing it again. She had never cooked in her life be-
fore fleeing the Hayholt, but traveling with Cadrach she
had been forced to learn, if only to avoid starving on
those frequent nights when he was too drunk to be of any
help. She wondered if there was some marsh plant that
might add flavor—perhaps she could wrap the fish in the
leaves and steam them. She wandered over to ask the
Wrannaman for advice.

Tiamak stood watching as Isgrimnur, Cadrach, and
Camaris tried for the fourth or fifth time to seal the leaks
that kept the bottom of their small boat almost constantly
full of water. The marsh man held himself a little apart,
as though to stand shoulder to shoulder with these
drylanders might be presumptuous, but Miriamele sud-
denly found herself wondering if she might have it back-
ward: maybe Wrannamen did not feel that those who
lived outside the marsh were worth very much. Could
Tiamak's stolidity be pride rather than shyness? She had
heard that some savages, like the Thrithings-men, actually
looked down on those who lived in cities. Could that be
true with Tiamak, too? She realized now that she knew
little about people outside the courts of Nabban and
Erkynland, although she had always thought herself a
shrewd judge of humanity. However, it was a much larger
and more complicated world on the other side of the
castle walls than she had ever suspected.

She reached out a hand toward the Wrannaman's shoul-
der, then pulled it back again. "Tiamak?" she said.

He jumped, startled. "Yes, Lady Miriamele?"

"I would like to ask you some questions about plants—
for the cook-pot, that is."

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER

407

He lowered his eyes and nodded. Miriamele could not
believe that this was a man too proud to speak. The two
of them walked back to the fire. After she had asked him
a few questions and had shown that she was genuinely in-
terested, he began to talk more freely- Miriamele was as-
tonished. Although his reserve did not completely vanish,
the Wrannaman turned out to be so full of plant lore, and
so pleased to share some of it, that she quickly found her-
self overwhelmed with information. He found for her half
a dozen flowers and roots and leaves that could be safely
used to add savor to food, plucking them as he walked
her around the campsite and down to the water's edge,
and he listed a dozen more that they would encounter as
they traveled through the Wran. Caught up, he began to
point out other bits of greenery that were useful as med-
icine or ink or countless other things.

"How do you know so much?"

Tiamak stopped as if he had been struck. "I am sorry,
Lady Miriamele," he said quietly. "You did not wish to
hear all this."

Miriamele laughed. "I think it's wonderful. But where
did you leam it all?"

"I have studied these things for many years."

"You must know more than anyone in the world!"

Tiamak averted his face. Miriamele was fascinated.
Was he blushing? "No," he said, "no, I am just a stu-
dent." He looked up shyly, but with a hint of pride. "But
someday I do hope that my studies will be known—that
my name will be remembered."

"I'm sure that it will." She was still somewhat awed,
This slender little man with his unruly mop of thinning
black hair, dressed now like any other Wrannaman in
nothing but a belt and a loincloth, seemed as learned as
any of the writing-priests of the Hayholt! "No wonder
Morgenes and Dinivan were your friends."

His pleased look abruptly evaporated, leaving behind a
kind of sadness. 'Thank you. Lady Miriamele. Now I will
leave you to do what you will with those small fish. I
have bored you long enough."

He turned and walked back across the marshy clearing,

408 Tad Williams

stepping without visible attention from one tussock of
solid earth to another, so that when he reached the far side
and sat down on a log his feet were still dry. Miriamele,
who had mud up to her shins, was forced to admire his

sure-footedness.

But what did I say to upset him? She shrugged and
took her handful of marsh-blossoms back to the waiting
fish.

After supper—Tiamak's savory touches had proven
most welcome—the company stayed seated around the
fire. The air remained warm, but the sun had gone down
behind the trees and the marsh was filling with shadows.
An army of frogs that had begun booming and croaking
at the first onset of evening was contesting with a vast ar-
ray of whistling, chirping, and screeching birds, so that
the twilight was as noisy as a holiday fair.

"How big is the Wran?" Miriamele asked.

"It is almost as large as the peninsula of Nabban." said
Tiamak. "But we will only have to cross a small part of
it, since we are already in the northernmost region."

"And how long will it take, 0 guide?" Cadrach was
leaning back against a log, trying to make a flute out of
a marsh reed. Several crumpled stalks, the victims of pre-
vious attempts, lay beside him.

The sad look that Miriamele had seen earlier returned
to the Wrannaman's face. 'That depends."

Isgrimnur cocked a bushy eyebrow. "Depends on what,
little man?"

"On which way we go." Tiamak sighed. "Perhaps it is
best I share my worries with you. I suppose it is not a de-
cision I should make alone."

"Speak, man," the duke said.

Tiamak told them of his dilemma. He made it plain that
it was not only the shame of returning to his village-folk
after having failed their errand that he feared, but that
even if the rest of the company were allowed to leave
again, Tiamak himself might not be, stranding them deep
in the Wran without a guide-

"Could we not hire another of the villagers?" Isgrimnur

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER

asked. "Not that we want to see anything happen to you,
of course," he added hastily.

"Of course." Tiamak's glance was cool. "As to your
question, I do not know. Our clan has never been one to
•cause trouble for others, unless actual harm is done to
someone of Village Grove, but that does not mean that
the elders might not prevent anyone in the settlement
from helping you. It is hard to say."

The company debated as night came on. Tiamak did his
best to explain the distance and the dangers involved in a
trip to any alternate settlement south of Village Grove. At
last, as a troop of chittering apes scrambled past over-
head, making the tree branches dip and waver, they ar-
rived at a decision.

"It's hard, Tiamak," Isgrimnur said, "and we will not
force you against your will, but it seems best we go to
your village."

The Wrannaman nodded solemnly. "I agree. Even
though I have done no wrong to the clanfolk of High
Branch Houses or Yellow Trees, there is no certainty that
they would take kindly to strangers. At least my people
have been tolerant of the few drylanders that have come."
He sighed. "I think I will walk'for a short while. Please,
stay near the fire." He rose and ambled down toward the
waterway, quickly vanishing in the shadows.

Camaris, bored by the others' talk, had long since
curled up with his head on a cloak and gone to sleep, his
long legs drawn up like a small child's. Miriamele,
Isgrimnur, and Cadrach faced each other over the flicker-
ing blaze. The hidden birds, who had quieted as Tiamak
walked out of the campsite, swelled into raucous voice
again.




"He seems very sad," Miriamele said.

Isgrimnur yawned. "He's been steady enough, in his
way."

"Poor man." Miriamele lowered her voice, worried that
the Wrannaman might return and hear them. No one liked
to be pitied. "He knows a lot about plants and flowers.
It's too bad that he has to live so far away from people
who could understand him."

4io

Tad Williams

"He is not the only one with such a problem," said
Cadrach, mostly to himself.

Miriamele was watching a small deer, white-spotted
and round-eyed, that had come down to the watercourse
to drink. She held her breath as it stilted along the sandy
bank, a bare three cubits from the boat; her companions
had all fallen silent in the afternoon heat, so there was
nothing to frighten the deer away. Miriamele rested her
chin on the railing of the boat, marveling at the creature's
graceful movements.

As it dipped its nose to the muddy river, a toothy snout
suddenly erupted from the water. Before it could leap
back, the little deer was seized by the crocodile and
dragged down thrashing into the brown darkness. Nothing
remained but ripples. Miriamele turned away, revolted
and more than a little frightened. How swiftly death had

come!

The more she watched, the more fickle the Wran
seemed, a place of waving fronds, shifting shadows, and
constant movement. For every beauty—great bell-like
scarlet flowers as heavily scented as any Nabbanai dow-
ager, or hummingbirds like streaks of jeweled light—
Miriamele saw what seemed to be a corresponding
ugliness, like the great gray spiders, large as supper
bowls, that clung to the overhanging branches.

In the trees she saw birds of a thousand colors, and
mocking apes, and even dappled snakes that hung from the
branches like swollen vines. At sunset, clouds of bats
leaped out from the upper branches and turned the sky into
a whirling storm of wings. Insects, too, were everywhere,
buzzing, stinging, wings shimmering in the uneven sunlight.
Even vegetation moved and shifted, the reeds and trees
bending in the wind, the water plants bobbing with every
ripple. The Wran was a tapestry in which every thread
seemed to be in motion. Everything was alive.

Miriamele remembered the Aldheorte, which had also
been a place of life, of deep roots and quiet power, but
that forest had been old and settled. Like an ancient peo-
ple, it seemed to have found its own stately music, its

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER

411

own measured and unchanging pace. She remembered
thinking that the Aldheorte could easily remain just as it
was until the end of time. The Wran seemed to be invent-
ing itself every moment, as though it were a curl of foam
on the boiling edge of creation. Miriamele could just as
easily imagine returning in twenty years to find it a howl-
ing desert, or a jungle so thick that there would be no pas-
sage through it, a clot of green and black where the
twining leaves would shut out the very light of the sun.

As the days passed and the boat and its small crew
moved deeper into the marshlands, Miriamele felt a
\;   weight lift from her being. She felt anger still, at her fa-
ther and his terrible choices, at Aspitis who had tricked
her and violated her, at the supposedly kindly God that
had so twisted her own life from her grasp ... but it was
^ an anger that did not bite so fiercely now. When all
t/ around her was so full of weirdly vibrant and changing
^ life, it was hard to hold on to the bitter feelings that had
ruled her in the weeks before. When the world was cease-
lessly recreating itself on every side, it was almost impos-
sible for her not to feel as though she, too, were being
made anew.

"What are all these bones?" Miramele asked. On either
side of the waterway, the shoreline was littered with skel-
etons, a jumble of spines and rib cages like the bleached
staves of ruined ships, strangely white against the mud- "I
I hope they belong to animals."

"We are all animals," said Cadrach. "We all have
bones."

"What are you trying to do, monk, frighten the girl?"
Isgrimnur said angrily. "Look at those skulls. Those were
cockindrills, not men."

"Ssshh." Tiamak turned from the prow of the boat.
"Duke Isgrimnur is right. They are the bones of croco-
diles. But you must be quiet for a while now. We are
^-coming to the Pool of Sekob."
1 "What is that?"
| "It is the reason for all these remains." The

I'Wrannaman's eyes lit on Camaris, who was trailing his

^

412 Tad Williams

veined hand in the water, watching the ripples with the
absorbed stare of childhood. "Isgrimnur! Do not let him
do that!"

The duke turned and lifted Camaris' hand out of the
water. The old man looked at him with mild reproach, but
kept his dripping hand in his lap.

"Now, please be quiet for a little while," said Tiamak.
"And row slowly. Do not splash."

"What is this all about?" Isgrimnur demanded, but at a
look from the Wrannaman he fell silent. He and
Miriamele did their best to make their touch on the oars
gentle and steady.

The boat floated down a waterway so draped with the
fronds of leaning willows that it seemed hung with a solid
green curtain. When they had passed the willows, they
discovered that the passage had suddenly opened before
them into a wide, still lake. Banyan trees grew down to
the water's edge, serpentine roots forming a wall of curl-
ing wood around most of the lake. On the far side the
banyans fell away and the lake floor sloped up into a
broad beach of pale sand. A few small islands, mere
bumps on the surface of the water near the beach, were
the only thing that marred the lake's glassy smoothness.
A pair of bitterns stalked along the water's edge at the
near end, bending to probe in the mud. Miriamele thought
that the wide strand looked like a wonderful place to
camp—the lake itself seemed an airy paradise after some
of the wet and tangled places they had stopped—and she
was about to say so when Tiamak's fierce look stilled her.
She supposed that this was some kind of sacred spot for
me Wrannaman and his folk. Still, there was no cause for
him to treat her like a misbehaving child.

Miriamele turned away from Tiamak and looked out
across the lake, memorizing it so that someday she would
be able to summon up the feeling of pure peace it repre-
sented. As she did, she had a sudden disquieting sensation
that the lake was moving, that the water was flowing
away to one side. A moment later she realized that it was
the small islands that were moving instead. Crocodiles!
She had been fooled before, seen other logs and sandbars

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER                          413

that abruptly lurched into life; she smiled at her own city-
bred innocence. Perhaps it would not be such a wonderful
choice for camp after all—still, a few crocodiles did not
spoil the looks of the place,...

The moving bumps rose farther out of the water as they
neared the beach. It was only when the immense, impos-
sible thing finally crawled up onto the sand, dragging its
bloated form into the clear light of the sun, that
Miriamele finally realized that there was only one croco-
dile.

"God's mercy on us'" Cadrach said in a strangled
whisper. Isgrimnur echoed him.

The great beast, long as ten men, wide as a mason's
barge, turned its head to regard the little boat slipping
across the lake. Both Miriamele and Isgrimnur ceased
rowing, hands clammy and nerveless on the sweeps.

"Don't stop!" Tiamak hissed. "Slowly, slowly, but keep
-going!"

^  Even across the expanse of water, Miriamele thought
J- she could see the creature's eye glitter as it watched them,
|: feel its cold and ancient stare. When the immense legs
t whirled and the clawed feet dug briefly at the ground as
^though the giant would turn and re-enter the water,
|Miriamele feared her heart would stop. But the great
^crocodile did no more than send a few gouts of sand into
jme air, then the huge, knobby head dropped down to the
||beach and the yellow eye closed.

I". When they had made their way across to the water-
pway's outlet, Miriamele and Isgrimnur began rowing
g^aid, as if by silent agreement. After a few moments they
|were breathing heavily. Tiamak told them to stop.
t "We are safe," he said. "The time has long gone when

l&e could follow us up this way. He has gotten far too
sa.^ »

"What was it?" Miriamele gasped. "It was horrible."
"Old Sekob. My folk call him the grandfather of all
|terocodiles. I do not know if that is true, but he is certainly
jfte master of all his kind. Year after year other crocodiles
~Mne to fight him. Year after year he feeds on these dial-
lers, swallows them whole, so he never has to hunt

414

Tad Williams

any more. The strongest of all sometimes escape the lake
and crawl as far away as the riverbank before they die.
Those were the bones you saw."

"I've never seen anything like it." Cadrach had gone
quite pale, but there was a quality of exhilaration in his
tone. "Like one of the great dragons'"

"He is the dragon of the Wran," Tiamak agreed. "There
is no doubt of that. But unlike drylanders, we marsh-folk
leave our dragons alone. He is no threat to us, and he kills
many of the largest man-eaters that would otherwise prey
on me Wran people. So we show him respect. Old Sekob
is far too well-fed to need to chase such a puny morsel as
we would make."

"So why did you want us to be quiet?" asked

Miriamele.

Tiamak gave her a dry look. "He might not need to eat
us, but you do not go into the king's throne room and
play children's games, either. Especially when the king is
old and quick to temper."

"Elysia, Mother of God." Isgrimnur shook his head.
Sweat beaded his forehead, although the day was not par-
ticularly warm. "No, we certainly would not want to get
that old fellow upset."

"Now come," said Tiamak. "If we keep on until first
dark, we should be able to reach Village Grove by tomor-
row midday."

As they traveled, the Wrannaman became more talka-
tive. When they had reached waters so shallow that
rowing was no use, there was little else to do but listen
to each others' stories as Tiamak stood and poled the boat
along. Under Miriamele's questioning he told them much
about the life of the Wran, as well as about his own un-
usual choices which had marked him out from his fellow
villagers.

"But your people have no king?" she asked.

"No." The small man thought for a moment. "We have
elders, or we call them that, but some of them are no
older than I am. Any man can become one."

"How? By asking to?"

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

"No. By giving feasts." He smiled shyly. "When a man
has a wife and children—and whatever other family lives
with him—and can feed them all with some left over, he
begins to give what is left to others. In return, he might
ask for something like a boat or new fishing floats, or if
he chooses he can say: 'I will ask payment when I give
my feast.' Then, when he is owed enough, he 'calls for
the crabs,' as we say, which means he asks all those who
owe him things to pay him back; then he invites everyone
in the village for a feast. If everyone is satisfied, that man
becomes an elder. He must then give such a feast once ev-
ery year, or he will not be an elder in that year."

"Sounds daft," Isgrimnur grumbled, scratching. He had
been by far the greatest target for the local insect life; his
broad face was covered in bumps. Miriamele understood,
and forgave him his short temper.

"No more daft man passing land down from father to
son." Cadrach's response was mild, but held an edge of
sarcasm. "Or getting it in the first place by braining your
neighbor with an ax—as your folk did until fairly re-
cently, Duke."

"No man should have what he is not strong enough to
protect," Isgrimnur responded,- but he seemed more pre-
occupied with digging at a difficult spot between his
shoulder blades than with continuing the debate.

"I think," Tiamak said quietly, "that it is a good way.
It makes certain that no one starves and that no one
hoards his wealth. Until I studied in Perdruin, I could not
imagine that there was another way of doing things."

"But if a man doesn't wish to be an elder," Miriamele
pointed out, "then there's nothing to make him give up
the things he is gathering."

"Ah, but then no one in the village thinks very highly
of him." Tiamak grinned. "Also, since the elders decide
what is best for the village, they might just decide that the
excellent fish pond beside which a rich and selfish man
has built his house now belongs to all the village. There
is little sense in being rich and not being an elder—it
causes jealousy, you see."

Duke Isgrimnur continued to scratch. Tiamak and

4i6

Tad Williams

Cadrach fell into a quiet conversation about some of the
more intricate points of Wran theology. Miriamele, who
had grown tired of talk, took the opportunity to watch old

Camaris.

Miriamele could stare without embarrassment: the tall
man seemed quite uncaring, no more interested in the
business of his fellows than a horse in a paddock might
be with the traders talking by the fence. Observing his
bland but certainly not stupid face, it was almost impos-
sible to believe that she was in the presence of a legend.
The name of Camaris-sa-Vinitta was nearly as famous as
that of her grandfather Prester John, and both of them,
she felt sure, would be remembered by generations yet
unborn. Yet here he was, old and witless, when all the
world had thought him dead. How could such a thing
have come to pass? What secrets hid behind his guileless

exterior?

Her attention was drawn down to the old knight's
hands- Gnarled and callused by decades of toil at
Pelippa's Bowl and on countless battlefields, they were
still somehow quite noble, huge and long-fingered but
gentle. She watched him twisting aimlessly at the material
of his ragged breeches and wondered how such deft, care-
ful hands could have dealt death as swiftly and terribly as
his legend said. Still, she had seen his strength, which
would have been impressive even in a man half his age,
and in the few moments of danger the little company had
experienced in the Wran, when the boat had threatened to
overturn or someone had fallen into a pit of sucking mud,
he had responded with amazing quickness.

Miriamele's eyes strayed back to Camaris' face once
more. Before encountering him at the inn, she had never
met him, of course—he had disappeared a quarter of a
century before her birth—but there was something trou-
blingly familiar about his face. It was something that she
only saw at certain angles, a phantom glint that left her
feeling as though she were on the verge of some revela-
tion, of some profound recognition ... but the moment
would always pass and the familiarity would disappear.
Just now, for instance, the nagging sensation was not

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER                           417

present: at this moment, Camaris looked like nothing but
a handsome old man with a particularly serene and other-
worldly expression-

Perhaps it was only the paintings and tapestries,
Miriamele reasoned—after all, she had seen so many pic-
tures of this famous man! There were likenesses of him in
the Hayholt. in the ducal palace at Nabban, even in
Meremund ... although Elias had only hung them when
his father John was coming, to honor the old man's
friendship with Osten Ard's greatest knight. Her father
Elias, who had considered himself the paramount knight
of his father's kingdom in latter days, had shown little pa-
tience with stories of the old times of the Great Table, and
particularly with tales about the splendor of Camaris....

Miriamele's thoughts were interrupted by Tiamak's an-
nouncement that they were nearing Village Grove.

"I hope you will forgive me if we stop and spend the
night at my little house," he said. "I have not seen it for
several months and I would like to make sure that my
birds have survived. It would take us another hour or so
to reach the village anyway, and it is later in the day than
I thought it would be." He waved a hand toward the red-
dening western sky. "We may as well wait until morning
to go see the elders."

"I hope your house has curtains to keep the bugs out,"
Isgrimnur said somewhat plaintively.

"Your birds?" Cadrach was interested. "From Mor-
genes?"

Tiamak nodded. "To begin with, although I have long
since been raising my own. But Morgenes taught me the
art, it is true."

"Could we use them to send a message to Josua?"
Miriamele asked.

"Not to Josua," Tiamak said, frowning in thought. "But
if you know of any Scrollbearers who might be with him
we could try. These birds cannot find just anybody. Ex-
cept for certain people whom they have been trained to
seek out, they only know places, like any ordinary mes-
senger birds. In any case, we will talk about this when we
are under my roof."

4i8

Tad Williams

Tiamak guided the boat through a succession of tiny
streamlets, some so shallow that the whole company was
forced to stand waist-deep in the water to lift the rowboat
over the sandbars. At last they entered a slow-moving wa-
terway that took them down a long alley of banyan trees-
They drew up at last before a hut so cunningly hidden
that they would surely have drifted past if its owner were
not guiding the boat. Tiamak hooked down the ladder of
twisted vines and one by one they climbed up into the
Wrannaman's house.

Miriamele was disappointed to find the interior of the
hut so spare. It was obvious that the little scholar was a
man of humble means, but she had at least hoped in this,
her first experience of a Wran dwelling, to find a little
more in the way of exotic furnishings. There were neither
beds, tables, nor chairs. Other than the firepit set into the
floor of the house beneath a cleverly vented smoke hole,
the only household belongings were a small chest of
wickerwork, another much larger and sturdier wooden
chest, a stretched-bark writing board, and a few other
odds and ends. Still, it was dry, and that alone was such
a change from the last few days that Miriamele was grate-
ful.

Tiamak showed Cadrach the wood piled beneath the
eaves outside one of the high windows, then left the
monk to start a fire while he himself clambered up onto
the roof to see to his birds. Camaris, whose height made
him seem a giant in the small house—although Isgrimnur
was not much shorter and was certainly a great deal
heavier—squatted uncomfortably in the comer.

Tiamak appeared at the window, upside down- He was
leaning over the edge of the roof, and he was clearly de-
lighted. "Look!" He held up a handful of powdery gray-
"It is Honey-Lover! She has come back! Many of the oth-
ers, too!" He disappeared from sight as though jerked up
by a string. After a moment, Camaris went to the window
and climbed out after him with his usual surprising dex-
terity.

"Now if we could only find something to eat," Is-


TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER

grimnur said. "I don't really trust Tiamak's marsh-
muck—not that I'm not grateful." He wet his lips, "It's
just that I wouldn't turn down a joint of beef or some-
thing like. Keep our strength up."

Miriamele could not help laughing. "I don't think there
are many cows in the Wran."

"Can't be sure," Isgrimnur muttered distractedly. "It's
a strange place. Could be anything here."

"We met the grandfather of all crocodiles," Cadrach
said as he fumbled with the flints. "Could it be. Duke
Isgrimnur, that somewhere in the dank shrubbery lurks
the gigantic grandmother of all cows? With a brisket big
as a wagon?"

The Rimmersman would not be baited. "If you mind
your manners, sirrah, I might even leave you a bite or
two."

There was no beef. Isgrimnur, along with the rest of the
company, was forced to make do with a thin soup made
: from various kinds of marsh-grass and a few slivers from
|the one fish Tiamak was able to catch before dark.
llsgrimnur made an offhand remark about the charm of an
Bember-roasted pigeon, but the Wrannaman was so horri-
"i'fied that the duke quickly apologized.

t; "It's just my way, man," he grumbled. "I'm damned
wry. Wouldn't touch your birds,"

Even had he been serious, he might have found it more
'Ticult than expected. Camaris had taken to Tiamak's pi-
ons as though to a long-lost family. The old knight
_ 3nt most of the evening up on the roof of the house
^with his head stuck in the dovecote- He came down for
'^y a few moments to drink his share of the soup, then
limbed back to the roof again, where he sat in silent
pmmunion with Tiamak's birds until everyone else had
uried up in their cloaks on the board floor. The old man
stumed at last and lay down, but even then he stared fix-
dly at the shadow-darkened ceiling as though he could
" through the thatch to where his new friends roosted;

eyes were still open long after the sound of Isgrimnur
1 Cadrach snoring had filled the small room. Miriamele

420 Tad Williams

watched him until drowsiness began to send her own
thoughts spinning slowly around like a whirlpool.

So Miriamele fell asleep in a house in a tree with the
quiet slapping of water beneath her, the questioning cries
of night birds above.

Different birds were shrilling when the tree-filtered
sunlight awoke her. Their voices were coarse and repeti-
tive, but Miriamele did not find it too distracting. She had
slept astonishingly well—she felt as though she had got-
ten the first solid night's sleep since leaving Nabban.

"Good morning!" she said cheerily to Tiamak, who
was huddled over the firepit- "Something smells nice."

The Wrannaman bobbed his head. "I found a pot of
flour I had buried in the back. How it stayed dry I will
never know. Usually my seals don't hold." He pointed his
long fingers at the flat cakes bubbling on a hot stone. "It
is not much, but I always feel better when I get hot food."

"Me, too." Miriamele took a deep, savoring sniff. How
astonishing yet reassuring it was that someone raised
around the groaning banquet tables of Erkynlandish roy-
alty could still find herself so pleased by unleavened bis-
cuits cooked on a rock—if only the circumstances were
right. There was something profound in that, she knew,
but it seemed a shame to brood so early in the morning.
"Where are the others?" she asked.

'Trying to clear some rocks out of the narrow part of
the waterway. If we can get the boat past this spot, we
will have an easy time in to Village Grove. We will be
there long before noon."

"Good." Miriamele considered for a moment. "I want
to wash. Where should I go?"

"There is a rainwater pool not too far away," Tiamak
said. "But I should take you there."

"I can go by myself," she said, a little briskly.

"Of course, but it is very easy to make a bad step here,
Lady Miramele." The slender man was embarrassed to
have to correct her, and Miriamele immediately felt
ashamed.

TO  GREEN  ANGEL TOWER

421

"I'm sorry," she said. "It's very kind of you to take me,
Tiamak. Whenever you're ready, we'll go."

He smiled. "Now. Just let me pull these cakes off, so
they do not bum. The first crabs should go to the one who
made the trap, don't you think?"

It was not easy to climb down from the house while
juggling hot cakes. Miriamele almost fell off the ladder.

Their three companions were a little way up the estu-
ary, waist-deep in green, scummy water. Isgrimnur
straightened up and waved. He had doffed his shin, and
his great chest and stomach, covered with reddish-brown
fur, were revealed in all their glory beneath the murky
sun. Miriamele giggled. He looked just like a bear.

"There is food inside," Tiamak called to them. "And
batter in the bowl to make more."

Isgrimnur waved again.

After wading through the thick, clinging underbrush for
a few moments, skirting patches of sucking mud,
Miriamele and Tiamak began to climb a short, low rise.
'This is one of the little hills," Tiamak said. "There are
a few in this part of the Wran—the rest is very flat." He
pointed into the distance, which was just as tree-choked
where he pointed as in any other direction. "You cannot
see from here, but the highest point in the Wran is there,
half a league away. It is called Ya Mologi—Cradle Hill."

"Why?"

"I don't know. I think that She Who Birthed Mankind
is supposed to have lived there." He looked up, shy again.
"One of our gods."

When Miriamele did not comment, the little man
turned around and pointed along the rise a short distance
to a place where the land folded in upon itself. A row of
tall trees grew there—willows again, Miriamele noticed.
They seemed far more robust than the surrounding vege-
tation. "There." Tiamak headed toward the spot where the
land dipped down.

It was a tiny canyon, a mere wrinkle in the hillside, less
than a stone's throw from end to end. The bottom was al-
most entirely filled with a standing pond choked with hy-
acinths and water lilies and long trailing grasses. "It is a

422 Tad Williams

rainwater pond," Tiamak said proudly. "It is the reason
my father Tugumak built his house here, although we
were far from Village Grove. There are a few other such
ponds in this part of the Wran, but this is much the nic-
est."

Miriamele looked it over a little doubtfully. "I can
bathe in it?" she asked. "No crocodiles or snakes or any-
thing else?"

"A few water beetles, nothing more," the Wrannaman
assured her. "I will go and leave you to your washing.
Can you find your way back?"

Miriamele thought for a moment. "Yes, I'm close
enough to shout if I get lost, in any case."

"True." Tiamak turned and made his way back up the
shallow defile, then disappeared through the hedge of wil-
lows. When she heard his voice again, it was quite faint.
"We will save some food for you. Lady!"

He did that to let me know he was far away, Miriamele
thought, smiling. So I wouldn't worry that he was staying
to watch. Even in the swamp, there are gentlemen.

She undressed, enjoying the morning warmth that was
one of the few nice things about the swamp, then waded
into the pond. She sighed with pleasure as the water
reached her knees: it was quite comfortable, only a little
cooler than a tub bath. Tiamak had given her a small gift,
she realized; it was one of the nicest she had been given
in a long while-

The bottom of the pond was covered with soft, firm
mud that felt good beneath her toes. The willows that
loomed so closely and drooped so low, as if greedy for
the pondwater, made her feel almost as protected and pri-
vate as if she had been in her chamber at Meremund. Af-
ter wading partway around the rim of the pool, she found
a spot where the grass grew thick beneath the surface.
She sat on it as though it were a carpet, sinking down un-
til the water almost reached her chin. She splashed water
on her face, then wetted her hair and tried to loosen the
tangles. Now that it was beginning to grow out again, she
could not treat it as carelessly as she had of late.

After she had finished, she simply sat for a while, lis-

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER

423

tening to the racket of birds and the warm wind moving
the trees.

As Miriamele was belting her dirty and somewhat od-
oriferous monk's robe around her waist once more—and
grumbling to herself as she did because she had not been
foresighted enough to bring a change of clothing with her
out of Pelippa 's Bowl—the rustle of leaves overhead sud-
denly became louder. Miriamele looked up, expecting a
large bird or perhaps even one of the marsh apes, but
what she saw instead caused her to suck in her breath in
shocked surprise.

The thing hanging from the branch was only as big as
a young child, but that was still unpleasantly large. It
looked something like a crab and something like a spider,
but despite its crustacean exterior it had, as far as
Miriamele could tell, only four limbs; each was jointed,
ending in a recurved claw. The creature's body was cov-
ered in a homy, leathery shell, gray and brown splashed
with inky black, crisscrossed with uneven trails of lichen.
Its eyes were the worst pan, though: their beady black
glimmer—somehow so oddly intelligent, despite the mal-
formed head and chitinous body—sent her stumbling
backward until she was sure it could not reach her, no
matter how prodigious a leaper it might be. The thing did
not move. It seemed to watch her in a disturbingly human
way, but the creature was otherwise not human in the
least; it did not even have a mouth that she could see, un-
less the little clicking things in the cleft at the bottom of
its blunt head served that purpose.

Miriamele shivered in disgust. "Go away!" she cried,
waving her hands as she might try to shoo a dog. The glit-
tering eyes stared at her with what almost seemed an at-
titude of amused malice.

But it has no face, she told herself. How can it have
feelings?! It was an animal, and it was either dangerous
or not. How could she think she saw feelings in some-
thing that was no more than a huge bug? Still, she found
the creature terrifying. Although it made no hostile move-
ment, she circled the tree widely as she made her way up




424

Tad Williams

out of the little canyon. The thing made no move to fol-
low her, but it turned to watch her go.

"A ghant," Tiamak explained as they were all climbing
back into the boat. "I am sorry it frightened you. Lady
Miriamele. They are ugly things, but they seldom attack
people, and almost never anyone larger than a child." -

"But it looked at me like a person would!" Miriamele
shuddered. "I don't know why, but it was dreadful."

Tiamak nodded his head. "They are not just low ani-
mals, Lady—or at least I do not think so, although others
of my folk insist they are no cleverer than crayfish. I
wonder, though: I have seen the huge nests they build,
and the clever way they hunt for fish and trap birds."

"So you would suggest they are thinking creatures?"
Cadrach asked dryly, "That would come as a disturbing
thought to the hierarchy of Mother Church, I should
think. Must they not then have souls? Perhaps Nabban
will have to send missionary priests out to the Wran to
bring them to the bosom of the True Faith."

"Enough of your mockery, Hemystirman," Isgrimnur
grunted. "Help me get this damnable boat off the sand-
bar."

It was a short journey to Village Grove, or so Tiamak
had said. The morning was bright and only comfortably
warm, but even so, the ghant had darkened Miriamele's
mood. It had reminded her of the terrible, alien nature of
the marsh country. This was not her home. Tiamak might
be able to live happily here—although she doubted that
such was the case even with him—but she herself cer-
tainly never could.

The Wrannaman, poling now with the oar handle,
directed them down an ever-turning succession of inter-
woven canals and streamlets, each one hidden from the
next by the thick shield of vegetation that grew along its
sandy, unstable banks—dense walls of pale reeds and
dark, tangled growth festooned with bright but somehow
feverish-looking flowers—so that every time that a side
course took them from one waterway to the next, the pre-

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER

425

vious one had vanished behind them almost as soon as the
stem of the boat had crossed over to the new one.

Soon the first houses of Village Grove began to appear
on either side of the waterway. Some were built in trees,
like Tiamak's; others loomed on tree-trunk stilts. After
they had floated past a few, Tiamak pulled the boat up be-
neath the landing of a large stilt-house and loudly hailed
the occupants.

"Roahog!" he called. When there was no reply, he
banged the oar handle against one of the pilings; the rat-
tling drove a bevy of green and scarlet birds shrieking
from the trees overhead, but brought no other response.
Tiamak shouted again, then shrugged.

"The potter is not home," he said. "I saw no one in the
other houses, either. Perhaps there is a gathering at the
landing-place."

They poled on. The houses that now began to appear
were closer together. Some of the dwellings seemed to be
composed of many small houses of different shapes and
sizes that had been grafted onto an original hut—clumps
; of muddled shapes pocked with irregular black windows,

like the nests of cliff-dwelling owls. Tiamak stopped and
, called at several of them, but nd' one ever answered his
hail.

"The landing-place," he said firmly, but Miriamele

•thought he looked worried. "They must be at the landing-
place."

•;  This proved to be a great, flat dock that protruded

halfway out into the middle of the widest part of the wa-
'•tercourse. Houses gathered thickly around it on all sides,

and parts of the landing-place itself were equipped with
..thatched roofs and walls. Miriamele guessed these areas
'might be used for market stalls. There were other signs of
^recent life—large decorated baskets set back in the leafy
tshade, boats bobbing at the end of their painters—but no
| people.

I Tiamak was clearly shaken. "They Who Watch and
|Shape," he breathed, "what has happened here?"
t "They're gone?" Miriamele looked around. "How
|could a whole village be gone?"

426 Tad Williams

"You've not seen the north, my lady," Isgrimnur said
dourly. 'There are many towns on the Frostmarch that are
empty as old pots."

"But those people have been chased out by war. Surely
there's no war here. Not yet."

"Some in the north have been chased out by war,"
Cadrach murmured. "Some by fear of things more diffi-
cult to name. And fear is everywhere in these days."

"I do not understand." Tiamak wagged his head as
though he still could not believe what he saw. "My peo-
ple would not just run away, even if they were afraid of
the war—which I doubt they have even heard about. Our
life is here. Where would they go?"

Camaris stood up suddenly, setting the boat rocking
and filling the other passengers with alarm; but when the
old man had balanced himself, he merely reached up and
plucked a long yellowish seedpod from one of the tree
branches hanging overhead, then sat back down again to
examine his prize.

"Well, there are boats here, anyway," Isgrimnur said.
"They're what we need. I don't mean to be cruel, Tiamak,
but we should pick one and be on our way. We'll leave
our boat for trade, as you said." He made a face, trying to
think of the knightly thing to do. "Maybe you can scratch
a letter on one of your parchments or somesuch—let 'em
know what we've done."

Tiamak stared for a moment as though he had suddenly
forgotten the Westerling language. "Oh," he said at last.
"A new boat. Of course." He shook his head. "I know we
have need for haste. Duke Isgrimnur, but would you mind
if we stopped here a little time? I must look around—see
if my sisters or anyone else left word of where they have

gone."

"Well . . ." Isgrimnur peered at the deserted dock.
Miriamele thought the duke seemed a little reluctant.
There was indeed something eerie about the empty vil-
lage. The inhabitants seemed to have vanished quite sud-
denly, as though they had been swept away by a strong
wind- "I suppose that's all right, certainly. We thought it
might take us the whole day, after all. Certainly."

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER

"Thank you." Tiamak nodded. "I would have felt ..."
He started again. "So far I have not done all that I could
do for my people. It would not be right Just to take a flat-
boat and float away without even looking about."

He caught hold of one of the tie posts and made their
boat fast to the landing-place.

The people of Village Grove did seem to have left in a
hurry. A cursory inspection showed that many useful
things had been left behind, not least of which were sev-
eral baskets of fruits and vegetables. While Tiamak went
off to search for some indication of why and where his
people had fled, Cadrach and Isgrimnur began to harvest
this unexpected bounty, loading their new vessel—a large
and well-constructed flatboat—until it floated rather
lower in the water than Tiamak might think was best. On
her own, Miriamele found some flower-colored dresses in
one of the huts near the landing-place. They were baggy
and shapeless, quite unlike anything she would ever have
worn at home, but in these conditions they would serve
nicely for a change of clothing. She also discovered a
pair of leather slippers, thong-stitched, that seemed as
though they might make a nice change from the boots
she had been wearing almost continuously since leaving
Naglimund. After a moment's hesitation over the pro-
priety of taking someone's belongings without leaving
anything in return, Miriamele steeled herself and appro-
priated the clothes- After all, what did she have to
exchange?

As morning slid into afternoon, Tiamak returned occa-
sionally to pass on his news, which was generally no
news. He had discovered the same curious evidence of
hasty retreat, but could find nothing to indicate why the
flight had occurred. The only possible clue was that sev-
eral spears and other weapons were missing from the hut
where the village's elders met—weapons that Tiamak said
were not the property of individuals but of the village as
a whole, important weapons which were only taken down
in time of battle or other conflict.

"I think I will go to Older Mogahib's house," said the

428 Tad Williams

Wrannaman. "He is our chief elder, so anything important
would be there. It is a good distance up the watercourse,
so I will take a boat. I should be back before the sun hits
the treeline." He pointed to indicate the sun's westward
path.

"Do you want to eat before you go?" Isgrimnur asked-
"I'll have the fire going in a moment."

Tiamak shook his head- "I can wait until I return. As I
said, there will still be much of the day left when I get
back."

But the afternoon waned and Tiamak did not return.
Miriamele and the others ate turnips—or at least some-
thing that looked like turnips, bulbous, starchy things
which Tiamak had assured them were safely edible—and
a squishy yellow fruit that they wrapped in green leaves
and baked in the coals of the fire. A brown, dovelike bird
that Cadrach captured with a snare, when boiled for soup,
helped to fill out the meal- As the shadows lengthened
across the green water and the hum of insects began to
rise, Miriamelfr became worried.

"He should have been back by now. The sun went be-
low the trees a long time ago."

"The little fellow's fine," Isgrimnur assured her. "He's
probably found something interesting—some damned
marsh-man scroll or something- He'll be back soon."

But he did not come back, not even when the sun had
gone and the stars came out. Miriamele and the others
made their beds out on the landing dock—more than a lit-
tle reluctantly, since they still had no idea what had hap-
pened to Village Grove's vanished citizens—and were
glad for the embers of the fire- Miriamele did not fall
asleep for a long time.

The morning sun was high when Miriamele awoke.
One look at Isgrimnur's worried face was enough to con-
firm what she had feared.

"Oh, poor Tiamak! Where is he? What could have hap-
pened!? I hope he isn't hurt!"

"Not just poor Tiamak, Lady." Cadrach's studiedly
sour tone did not entirely cover his deep unease. "Poor us

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

429

as well. How will we ever find our way out of this god-
less swamp by ourselves?"

She opened her mouth, then shut it again. There was
nothing to say.

A

"There's nothing else to do," Isgrimnur said on the sec-
ond Tiamak-less morning. "We have to try and find our
way out by ourselves."

Cadrach made a bitter face. "We might as well give
ourselves to the grandfather crocodile, Rimmersman. At
least it would save time."

"Damn you," Isgrimnur snarled, "don't expect me to
crawl off and die! I've never given up in my life, and I've
been in some tight spots."

"You've never been lost in the Wran before," Cadrach
pointed out.

"Stop it! Stop it now!" Miriamele's head hurt. The
wrangling had been going on since the middle of the day
before. "Isgrimnur's right. We have no other choice."

Cadrach seemed about to say something unpleasant,
but shut his mouth instead and stared off at the empty
houses of Village Grove.

"We will go the same direction Tiamak went," declared
Isgrimnur. "That way, if something has happened to
him—I mean if he is hurt or holed his boat or something
like—at least we may chance upon him."

"But he said he was not going far—just to the other
end of his people's village," she said. "When we leave the
last houses, we will not know where he meant us to go
next, will we?"

"No, curse it, and I was too foolish to think to ask him
when I could have." Isgrimnur scowled. "Not that any-
thing he said would have made much sense—this damna-
ble place just turns my head around."

"But the sun is still the same, even over the Wran,"
Miriamele said, a touch of desperation now making itself
felt. "The stars, too. We should be able to decide which
direction is north toward Uncle Josua, at least."

430

Tad Williams

Isgrimnur smiled sadly. "Aye. That's true, Princess. We

will do our best."

Cadrach stood suddenly, then walked to the flatboat
they had selected, stepping around the old man Camaris,
who was dangling his feet off the dock into the green wa-
ter. Earlier Miriamele had dangled her own feet similarly
and been bitten by a turtle, but the old man seemed to-
have established more amicable relations with the river's

inhabitants.

Cadrach bent and hefted one of the sacks piled on the
dock. He heaved it to Camaris, who caught it with ease
and dropped it into the boat. "I will not argue any fur-
ther," the monk said as he stooped for a second sack. "Let
us load what food and water we can. At least we will not
die from hunger or thirst—although we soon may wish

we had."

Miriamele had to laugh. "Elysia, Mother of God,
Cadrach, could you be more gloomy if you tried?! Maybe
we should just kill you now and put you out of your mis-
ery."

"I've heard worse ideas," grunted Isgrimnur.

Miriamele watched with apprehension as the center of
Village Grove disappeared behind them. Although it had
been empty, nevertheless it had clearly been a place
where people had lived; the marks of their recent habita-
tion were everywhere. Now she and her remaining friends
were leaving this bastion of comparative familiarity and
heading back into the unknowable swamps. She suddenly
wished they had decided to wait a few more days for

Tiamak.

They continued to float past deserted houses well into
the morning, although the dwellings were becoming ever
more widely separated from each other. The greenery was
as dense as ever. Watching the endless mural of vegeta-
tion unroll on either side, Miriamele for the first time
found herself wishing they had not followed Tiamak into
this place. The Wran seemed so heedless in its vegetative
enterprise, so busily unconcerned with anything as mean-
ingless as people. She felt very small.

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER

431

It was Camaris who saw it first, although he did not
speak or make any noise; it was only by his stance, the
sudden alertness like a hound on the point, that the others
were drawn to squint down the waterway at the drifting
speck.

"It's a flatboat!" Miriamele cried. "Someone's in it—
lying down! Oh, it must be Tiamak!"

"It's his boat, all right," isgrimnur said, "—the one
with the yellow and black eyes painted on the front."

"Oh, hurry, Cadrach!" Miriamete almost toppled the
monk into the waterway as she pushed at his arm. "Pole
faster!"

"If we tip over and drown," Cadrach said through
clenched teeth, "then we will do the marsh man little
good."

They approached the flatboat. The dark-haired, brown-
skinned figure lay curled in the bottom with one arm
hanging over the side, as though he had fallen asleep try-
ing to reach his hand down to the water. The boat was
drifting in a slow circle as Miriamele and her companions
pulled alongside. The princess was the first to cross over,
setting both boats rocking' as she hurried to the
Wrannaman's aid.

"Careful, my lady," Cadrach said, but Miriamele had
already lifted the small man's head onto her lap- She
gasped at the blood that had dried on the dark face, then
a moment later, gasped again.

"It's not Tiamak!"

The Wrannaman, who had obviously suffered much in
recent days, was stouter and a little lighter-skinned than
their companion. His skin was covered with some sticky
substance whose odor made Miriamele wrinkle her nose
in discomfort. Nothing else could be discovered, though,
for he was completely insensible. When she lifted the
water-skin to his cracked lips, Miriamele had to be very
careful not to choke him. The stranger managed to down
a few swallows without ever appearing to wake.

"So how did this blasted other marsh man wind up

432

Tad Williams

with Tiamak's boat?" Isgrimnur grumbled, digging the
mud from his bootheels with a stick. They had come
ashore to make a temporary camp while they decided
what to do; the ground in this spot was somewhat soggy.
"And what's happened to Tiamak? Do you think this fel-
low waylaid him for his flatboat?"

"Look at him," Cadrach said. 'This man could net
strangle a cat, I am sure. No, the question is not how he
got the boat, but why Tiamak isn't in it with him, and
what happened to this unlucky fellow in the first place.
Remember, this is the first of Tiamak's folk we've seen
since we left Kwanitupul for the marshes."

"That's true." Miriamele stared at the stranger. "Maybe
whatever happened to Tiamak's villagers happened to this
man, too! Or maybe he was running away from it ... or
... or something." She frowned. Instead of finding their
guide, they instead had discovered a new mystery to
make things even more complicated and unpleasant.
"What do we do?"

"Take him with us, I suppose," Isgrimnur said. "We
will want to ask him questions when he wakes up—but
the Aedon only knows how long that will be. We can't af-
ford to wait."

"Ask him questions?" Cadrach murmured. "And how,
Duke Isgrimnur, will we do that? Tiamak is a rarity
among his people, as he told us himself."

"What do you mean?"

"I doubt this fellow can speak anything other than the
Wran-tongue."

"Damn! Damn and damn and thrice damned!" The
duke colored. "Begging your pardon. Princess Miriamele.
He's right, though." He pondered a moment, then
shrugged. "Still, what else can we do? We'll bring him."

"Maybe he can draw pictures, or maps," Miriamele of-
fered.

"There!" Isgrimnur was relieved. "Maps! Clever, my
lady, very clever. Maybe he can do that, indeed."

The unknown Wrannaman slept through the rest of the
afternoon, not stirring even when the boat was scraped




TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

433

down the muddy bank and relaunched into the water-
course. Before departure. Miriamele had cleaned his skin,
discovering to her relief that most of his wounds were not
serious—at least the ones she could see. She could think
of nothing else to do.

Isgrimnur's thankless task of trying to find a safe pas-
sage through this treacherous and unfamiliar land was
made easier by the relatively straightforward nature of
this section of the waterway. Because there were few side
streams and few forks, it had seemed easiest to simply re-
main in the center of the watercourse, and so far it was
working. Although there had been a few junctures at
which Isgrimnur could have gone a different way, they
were still seeing occasional houses, so there seemed no
cause yet for worry.

Somewhat after the sun had passed the midpoint of the
sky, the strange Wrannaman suddenly woke up, startling
Miriamele, who was shading his eyes with a broad leaf as
she mopped his brow. The man's brown eyes widened in
fear as he saw her, then darted from side to side as though
he were surrounded by enemies. After a few moments his
hunted look softened and he became calmer, although he
still did not speak. Instead, he lay for a long while staring
up at the canopy of branches sliding past overhead. He
breathed shallowly, as though just to keep his eyes open
and watching represented the farthest limit of his
strength. Miriamele talked softly to him and continued
moistening his brow. She was certain that Cadrach was
right when he guessed that this man could not speak her
tongue, but she was not trying to tell him anything impor-
tant: a quiet and friendly voice, she hoped, might make
him feel better even if he did not understand any of her
words.

A little over an hour later the man was at last recovered
enough to sit partway up and take a little water. He still
seemed quite confused and ill, so it was no surprise when
the first noises he made were moans of discomfort, but
the unhappy sounds continued even as Miriamele offered
him another drink. The Wrannaman pushed away the skin

434

Tad Williams

bag, gesturing up the watercourse and showing every sign
of extreme disquiet.

"Is he mad?" Isgrimnur peered at the man suspiciously.
"Just what we need, some mad swamp fellow."

"I think he's trying to tell us to turn back," Miriamele
said, then realized with a sudden vertiginous drop in her
innards what she was saying. "He's telling us it's ... bad
to go the way we're going."

The Wrannaman at last found his words. "Mualum
nohoa!" he gabbled, obviously terrified. "Sanbidub
nohoa yia ghanta!" When he had said this again several
times, he tried to drag himself over the side and into the
water. He was weak and distracted; Miriamele was able to
restrain him with little difficulty. She was shocked when
he burst into tears, his round brown face as defenseless
and unashamed as a child's.

"What can it be?" she asked, alarmed. "He thinks it's
dangerous, whatever it is."

Isgrimnur shook his head. He was helping Cadrach
keep the boat off the tangled bank as they negotiated a
bend in the waterway. "Who knows? Could be some an-
imal, or some other group of marsh men who are at war
with these fellows. Or it could be some heathen
superstition—a haunted pond or something like."

"Or it could be what emptied Tiamak's village,"

Cadrach said- "Look."

The Wrannaman sat up again, straining to escape
Miriamele's grip. "Yia ghanta!" he burbled.

"Ghanta," Miriamele breathed, staring across the wa-
terway. "Ghants? But Tiamak said ..."

"Tiamak may have found out that he was wrong."
Cadrach's voice had dropped to a whisper.

On the far side of the watercourse, now revealed as the
flatboat made its way past the bend, sprawled a huge and
bizarre structure. It might almost have been built in par-
ody of Village Grove, for like that place it was obviously
the dwelling place of many. But where the village had
clearly been the work of human hands, this lopsided ag-
glomeration of mud and leaves and sticks, although it
stretched up from the water's edge into the trees to many

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER

435

times a man's height, and along the bank for what looked
like well over a furlong, was just as clearly not built by
human beings at all. A buzzing, clicking sound issued
from it and out across the Wran, a great cloud of noise
like an army of crickets in an echoing, high-arched room.
Some of the builders of the huge nest could be seen
clearly, even from the far side of the wide canal. They
moved in their distinctive manner, dropping deftly from
one stump of branch to a lower, scuttling swiftly in and
out of the black doors of the nest.

Miriamele felt both terror and a certain disgusted fasci-
nation. A single ghant had been disturbing. From the size
of the dwelling, she did not doubt that hundreds of the
unpleasant creatures were sheltering in this pile of dirt
and sticks.

"Mother of Usires," Isgrimnur hissed. He turned the boat
and poled rapidly back up the waterway until the bend in
the river shielded them once more from the alarming sight.
"What kind of hell-thing is that?"

Miriamele squirmed as she remembered the mocking
eyes that had watched her bathe, dots of jet pivoting in an
inhuman face. "Those are the ghants Tiamak told us
about."

The sick Wrannaman, who had fallen into deathly si-
lence when the nest came into view, began to waggle his
hands. "Tiamak!" he said hoarsely. "Tiamak nib dunou
yia ghanta!" He pointed back to where the nest lay hid-
den from their view by a wall of greenery. Miriamele did
not need to speak the Wran-tongue to know what the
strange man was saying.

"Tiamak's in there. Oh, God help him, he's in that nest.
The ghants have him."

14

Dorfc Corridors

The Stairs were steep and the sack was heavy, but Ra-
chel felt a certain joy, nevertheless. One more trip—just
one more time that she would be forced to brave the
haunted upper rooms of the castle—and then she would

be finished-
Just off the shadowy landing, halfway down the stairs,
she stopped and set down her burden, careful not to let the
jars clank. The doorway was hidden by what Rachel the
Dragon felt sure was the oldest, dustiest arras in the entire
castle. It was a measure of the importance of her hiding
hole remaining inconspicuous that she could pass it every
day and leave it uncleaned. Her very soul rebelled each
time she had to lay her hands on the moldering fabric, but
there were circumstances when even cleaning had to take
second place- Rachel grimaced. Hard times make odd
changes, her mother had always said. Well. if that wasn't
Aedon's holy truth, what was?

Rachel had taken great care to oil the ancient hinges, so
when she lifted the tapestry and pushed at the handle, the
door swung in almost silently. She lifted her bag over the
low threshold, then let the heavy tapestry slip back into
place behind her so it would again hide the door. She un-
shielded her lamp, set it in a high niche, and went to work
unpacking.

When the last jar had been removed and Rachel had
drawn a picture of the contents on its outside with a straw
dipped in lamp-black, she stepped back to survey her lar-
der. She had labored hard over the last month, surprising

TO GREEN ANOEL TOWER           437

even herself with her daring pilferage. Now she wanted
only the sack of dried fruit she had spotted on today's
raid, then she would be able to last out the entire winter
without risking capture. She needed that sack: a lack of
fruit to eat would mean the clenches, if not something
worse, and she could not afford to become ill with no one
to tend her. She had planned everything with great care so
that she could be alone: there was certainly no one left in
the castle she could trust.

Rachel had searched patiently for just the right place to
make her sanctuary. This monk's hole, far down in one of
the long-unused sections of the Hayholt's underground
rooms, had worked out perfectly. Now, thanks to her
ceaseless hunting, it was stocked with a larder that many
a lord of troubled Erkynland might envy. Also, just up a
few flights she had found another unused room—not as
well-hidden, but with a small slit window that protruded
just above ground level. Outside that window hung the
drain spout from one of the Hayholt's stone gutters- Ra-
chel already had a full barrel of water in her cell; as long
as the snows and rains lasted, she would be able to fill a
bucket every day from the spouL outside the room above,
and not have to touch her precious store of drinkable wa-
ter at all.

She had also scavenged spare clothing and several
warm blankets, as well as a straw mattress, and even a
chair to sit in—a fancy chair, as she marveled, with a
back on it! She had wood for the tiny fireplace, and so
many rows of jars of pickled vegetables and meats and
wrapped piles of hard-baked bread were stacked along the
walls that there was scarcely room to walk from the door
to the bed. But it was worth it. Here, in her hidden room
filled with provender, she knew she could last the better
part of a year. What might happen by the time the provi-
sions ran out, what event might take place that would al-
low her to leave her den and reemerge into daylight,
Rachel wasn't sure ... but that was something she could
not worry about. She would spend her time staying safe,
keeping her nest clean, and waiting. That lesson had been

438

Tad Williams

pounded into her since childhood: Do what you can. Trust
God for the rest.

She thought about her youth a great deal these days.
The constant solitude and the secretive nature of her daily
life conspired, limiting her activities and throwing her
back on her memories for entertainment and solace. She
had remembered things—an Aedonmansa when her father
had been feared lost in the snow, a straw doll that her sis-
ter had once made for her—that she had not thought of
for years. The memories, like the foodstuffs floating in
the briny darkness of the jars she was rearranging, were
only waiting to be taken out once more.

Rachel pushed the last jar back a little farther, so that
they made an even row. The castle might be falling apart,
but here in her haven she would have order! Only one
more trip, she thought. Then I won't have to be afraid any
more. Then I can finally have a little rest.

The Mistress of Chambermaids had reached the top of
the stairway and was reaching for the door when a feeling
of immense cold suddenly swept over her. Footsteps were
approaching on the other side of the door, a dull ticking
sound like water dripping on stone. Someone was com-
ing! She would be caught!

Her heart seemed to be beating so swiftly she feared it
would climb right up out of her chest. She was gripped by
a nightmarish immobility.

Move, idiot woman, move!

The footsteps were growing louder. She finally pulled
back her hand, then, seeing that movement was possible
after all, forced herself to back down onto a lower step,
looking around wildly. Where to go, where to go?

Trapped!

She backed farther down the slippery steps. Where the
stairway bent around the comer there was a landing,
much like the one where she had discovered her new
home. This landing, too, was graced with a musty, ragged
arras. She grabbed at it, struggling as the heavy, dusty
cloth resisted her. It seemed too much to hope that a room
was hidden behind this one, too, but at least she could

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

439

press herself flat against the wall and hope that the person
who was even now pulling at the door above her was
shortsighted, or in a hurry.

There was a door! Rachel wondered momentarily if
there hung a single tapestry in the sprawling castle that
didn't shield some hidden portal. She tugged at the an-
cient handle.

Oh, Aedon on the Tree, she mouthed silently—surely
the hinges would creak! But the hinges did not make a
sound, and the door swung open quietly, even as the door
at the top of the stairs above her scraped across the stone
flags. The noise of bootheels grew louder as they de-
scended the steps. Rachel pushed herself through and
pulled the door after her. It swung most of the way
closed, then stopped with a little less than a hand's width
remaining. It would not shut.

Rachel looked up, wishing she dared to unshutter her
lantern, but grateful that at least there was a torch burning
fitfully in the stairwell outside. She forced herself to
search carefully, even though black spots were swirling
before her eyes and her heart was rabbiting in her breast.
There' The top of the arras was caught in the door ... but
it was far above where she could reach. She grasped the
thick, dust-caked velvet to shake it free, but the footsteps
were almost on the landing. Rachel shrank back from the
open crack of the doorway and held her breath.

As the noise came closer, so, too, did the sensation cf
cold—a bone-deep chill like walking out of a hot room
into mid-winter winds. Rachel began shivering uncon-
trollably. Through the crack of the doorway she saw a
pair of black-clad figures- The quiet noise of their con-
versation, which had just become audible, abruptly
ceased- One of them turned so that its pale face was mo-
mentarily visible from Rachel's hiding place. Her heart
lurched, seeming to lose its beat. It was one of those
witch-things—the White Foxes' It turned away again,
speaking to its companion in a low but oddly musical
voice, then looked back up the steps they had just de-
scended. Another clatter of footsteps came echoing
down the stairwell.

440 Tad Williams

More of them?

Rachel, despite a horror of moving or doing anything at
all that might make a noise, began to back away. As she
stared at the partially opened doorway, praying that the
things would not notice how it was ajar, Rachel kept feel-
ing behind her for the rear wall. She took several steps
backward, until the doorway was only a thin vertical line
of yellowish torch-glow, but still her hand encountered no
resistance. She stopped at last and turned to look, terrified
by the sudden idea that she might stumble over something
stored in this room and send it clattering to the ground.

It was not a room. Rachel stood in the mouth of a cor-
ridor that led away into darkness.

She paused for a moment, forcing herself to think.
There was no sense in remaining here, especially with a
flock of those creatures just beyond the door. The stark
stone wall was devoid of hiding places, and she knew that
any moment now she might make an involuntary noise, or
worse, grow faint and fall noisily to the floor. And who
knew how long those things might stand there, murmur-
ing to themselves like carrion birds on a branch? When
their fellows all arrived, they might next enter this very
passageway! At least if she went now she might find
some better place to hide or another way out.

Rachel tottered down the corridor, trailing one hand
along the wall—the horrible, grimy things that she felt
beneath her fingers!—and holding the darkened lantern in
front of her with the other, trying to make sure that it did
not bump against the stone. The thin sliver of light from
the doorway disappeared behind a bend in the hallway,
leaving her in utter darkness. Rachel carefully pulled
back the lantern's hood a little way, allowing a single
beam to leap out and shine on the flagstones before her,
then began to walk swiftly down the passageway.

Rachel held the lamp high, squinting down the feature-
less corridor into the unexplored darkness beyond the
pool of light. Was there no end to the castle's maze of
passageways? She had thought she knew the Haynolt as
well as anyone, yet the last few weeks had been a revela-

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER

441

tion. There seemed to be another entire castle beneath the
basement storehouses that had once been the downward
limit of her experience. Had Simon known about these
places?

Thinking of the boy was painful, as always. She shook
her head and trudged forward. There had been no sound
of pursuit yet—she had finally caught her fear-shortened
breath—but there was no sense standing around waiting.

But there was a problem to be solved, of course: if she
dared not go back, what could she do? She had long
ceased trusting her ability to find her way in this warren.
What if she took a wrong turn and went wandering into
darkness forever, lost and starving... ?

Fool woman. Just don't turn off from this hall—or at
least mark the turn if you do. Then you can always find
the landing and the stairs again.

She snorted, the same chuff of sound that had reduced
many a novice chambermaid to whimpers. Rachel knew
discipline, even if it was she herself that needed it this
time.

No time for nonsense.

Still, it was strange to be wandering here in these
lonely, between-ish spaces. It was a little like what Father
Dreosan had said about the Waiting Place—that spot be-
tween Hell and Heaven where dead souls waited for judg-
ment, where they remained for a timeless time if they
were not bad enough for the former but not ready for the
latter. Rachel had found this a rather uncomfortable idea:

she liked her distinctions clean and forthright. Do wrong,
be damned and burnt. Lead a life of cleanliness and
Aedonite rigor and you could fly up to heaven and sing
and rest beneath eternal blue skies. This middle place that
the priest had spoken of just seemed unpleasantly myste-
rious. The God that Rachel worshiped should not work in
such a way.

The lamp's light fell upon a wall before her: the corri-
dor had ended in a perpendicular hallway, which meant
that if she wished to continue, she had to go right or left.
Rachel frowned. Here she was already, having to leave
the straight path. She didn't like it. The question was, did

442

Tad Williams

she dare go back, or even remain in the hallway? She
didn't think she'd traveled very far since leaving the stair-
case.

The memory of the whispering, white-faced things
gathering on the steps decided her,

She dipped a finger in lampblack, then stood on tiptoe
to mark the left wall of the corridor in which she stood.
That would be what she would see on returning. She then
turned reluctantly down the right-hand side of the inter-
secting corridor.

The passageway wound on and on, crisscrossed by
halls, opening out from time to time into small,
unwindowed galleries, each as empty as a plundered
tomb. Rachel dutifully marked each turn. She was begin-
ning to worry about the lamp—surely she would run out
of oil if she went much farther before turning back—
when the passageway ended abruptly at an ancient door.

The door had no markings, nor any bolt or lock. The
wood was old and warped and so waterstained that it was
splotched like the shell of a tortoise. The hinges were
great clumsy chunks of iron, fastened by nails that
seemed little more than shards of rough metal. Rachel
squinted at the floor to make sure that no recent footprints
other than her own were there, then made the Tree before
her breast and pulled at the stubby handle. The door grit-
ted open partway before grinding to a halt, wedged by
what must have been a century's worth of dust and rubble
on the floor. Beyond lay another darkened space, but this
darkness was glazed with reddish light.

It's Hell! was Rachel's first thought. Out of the Waiting
Place and through the door to Hell! Then: Elysia the
Mother! Old woman, you aren't even dead! Be sensible!
She stepped through.

The passageway on the far side was different than
those through which she had come. Instead of being lined
with cut and fitted stone, it was walled with naked rock.
The glimmers of red light which writhed across the rough
walls seemed to be coming from farther up the corridor to
me left, as though somewhere just around a comer a fire
was burning.

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

443

Despite her uncertainty over this new development, Ra-
chel was just about to take a few steps up the passage to-
ward the source of the red glow when she heard a sudden
noise from the opposite direction, down the new corridor
to her right. She hurriedly stepped back into the doorway,
but it was still stuck fast and would not close. She pushed
herself back into the shadows and tried to hold her breath.

Whatever made the new noise did not move very
quickly. Rachel cringed as the faint scraping slowly grew
louder, but mixed with the fear was a deep anger. To think
that she, the Mistress of Chambermaids, should be made
to cower in her own home by ... by things! Trying to
slow her racing heart, she relived the moment when she
had struck out at Pryrates—the hellish excitement of it,
the odd satisfaction of being able to actually do some-
thing after all those bleak months of suffering. But now?
Her strongest blow had not seemed to affect the red priest
at all, so what could she hope to do against a whole gang
of demons? No, it was better to stay hidden and save the
anger for when it might do her some good.

When the figure passed the stuck doorway, Rachel was
at first tremendously relieved .to see that it was only a
mortal after all, a dark-haired man whose form was barely
distinguishable against the red-lit rocks. A moment later
her curiosity came rushing back, buoyed by the same fury
she had felt earlier. Who felt so free to walk these dark
places?

She poked her head out through the doorway to watch
the retreating figure. He was walking very slowly, trailing
his hand along the wall, but his head was back and
waving from side to side, as though he tried to read some-
thing written on the corridor's shadowed ceiling.

Mercy, he's blind! she suddenly realized. The hesita-
tion, the questing hands—it was obvious. A moment later,
she realized that she knew the man. She flung herself
back into the darkness of the doorway.

Guthwulf! That monster! What is he doing here? For a
moment she had the dreadful certainty that Elias* hench-
men were still looking for her, combing the castle hall by

444

Tad Williams

hall in meticulous search. But why send a blind man?
And when had Guthwulf gone blind?

A memory came back, fragmented but still unsettling.
That had been Guthwulf on the balcony with the king and
Pryrates, hadn't it? The Earl of Utanyeat had grappled
with the alchemist even as he, with Rachel's dagger
standing in his back, rounded upon the Mistress of Cham-
bermaids who lay stunned on the floor. But why would
Guthwulf have done that? Everyone knew that Utanyeat
was the High King's Hand, most hardhearted of Elias'

minions.

Had he actually saved her life?

Rachel's head was whirling. She peered out through the
open doorway again, but Earl Guthwulf had disappeared
around a bend in the corridor, heading toward the red
glow. A tiny shadow detached itself from the greater
darkness and skittered past her feet, following him into
the shadows. A cat? A gray cat?

The world beneath the castle had become altogether too
confusingly dreamlike for Rachel. She unshuttered her
lantern again and turned back in the direction she had
come, leaving the door to the rough passageway ajar. For
now, she wanted no dealings with Guthwulf, blind or not.
She would follow her own careful marks back toward the
staircase landing and pray that the White Foxes had gone
on about their unholy business. There was much to think
about—too much. Rachel wanted only to shut herself
safely away in her sanctuary and go to sleep.

*

As Guthwulf trudged along, his head was full of seduc-
tive, poisonous music—a music that spoke to him, that
summoned him, but that also frightened him as nothing
else ever had.

For a long time in the endless darkness of his days and
nights he had heard that song only in dreams, but today
the music had come to him at last in his waking hours,
summoning him up from the depths, driving even the
whispering voices that were his regular companions out

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER

445

of his mind. It was the voice of the gray sword, and it was
somewhere nearby.

A part of the Earl of Utanyeat knew perfectly well that
the sword was only an object, a mute stem of metal that
hung on the king's belt, and that the last thing in the
world he should want to do was seek it out, since where
it was. King Elias would also be. Guthwulf certainly did
not want to be caught—he cared little for his safety, but
he would rather die alone in the pits below the castle than
be seen by the people who had known him before he had
become such a pitiable wreck—but the presence of the
sword was hugely compelling. His life was now little
more than echoes and shadows, cold stone, ghostly
voices, and the tapping and scraping of his own footsteps.
But the sword was alive, and somehow its life was more
powerful than his own. He wanted to be near it.

/ will not be caught, Guthwulf told himself. / will be
clever, careful. He would merely venture close enough to
feel its singing strength....

His thoughts were disrupted by something twining
through his ankles—the cat, his shadow-friend. He bent
to touch the animal, running his fingers along its bony
back, feeling its lean muscles. It-had come with him, per-
haps to keep him out of trouble. He almost smiled.

Sweat dripped down his cheek as he straightened. The
air was getting warmer. He could half-believe that after
all the stairs he had climbed, all the long upward ramps
he had trudged, he might be approaching the surface—but
could things have changed so much in his time below-
ground? Could the winter be fled, replaced by hot sum-
mer? It did not seem that so much time could have
passed, but perpetual darkness was deceptive. Blind
Guthwulf had already learned that while still in the castle.
As for the weather . -. well, in such ill-omened and con-
fusing times as these, anything was possible.

Now the stone walls were beginning to feel warm be-
neath his questing fingers. What was he walking into? He
pushed the thought down. Whatever it was, the sword was
there. The sword that was calling to him. Surely he
should go just a little farther....

446 Tad Williams

That moment when Sorrow had sung inside him, filling
him ...

In the moment Elias had forced him to touch it, it had
seemed that Guthwulf had become a pan of the sword. He
had been subsumed in an alien melody- For that moment
at least, he and the blade were one.

Sorrow needed its brothers. Together they would make
a music greater still.

In the king's throne room, despite his horror, Guthwulf
had also yearned for that communion. Now, remember-
ing, he ached for it again. Whatever the risks, he needed
to feel the song that had haunted him. It was a kind of
madness, he knew, but he did not have the strength to re-
sist it. Instead, it would take all his reserves of cunning
and self-restraint just to get closer without being revealed.
It was so near now....

The air in the narrow corridor was stifling. Guthwulf
stopped and felt around. The little cat was gone, probably
retreated to some place less injurious to its pads. When he
put his hand back onto the corridor wall, he could only
drag it for a short distance before he had to snatch it away
once more. From somewhere ahead he could now hear a
faint but continuous rush of sound, a near-silent roar.
What could lie before him?

Once a dragon had made its lair beneath the castle—the
red worm Shurakai, whose death had made Prester John's
reputation and provided the bones for the Hayholt's
throne, a beast whose fiery breath had killed two kings     '^
and countless castle-dwellers in an earlier century. Might
there still be a dragon, some whelp of Shurakai, grown to
adulthood in darkness? If so, let it kill him if it would—
let it roast him to ashes. Guthwulf was beyond caring
much about such things. All he wished was to bask first
in the song of the gray sword.

The pathway took a sharp upward angle, and he had to
lean forward to make any headway. The heat was fierce;

he could imagine his skin blackening and shriveling
like the cooked flesh of a holiday pig. As he struggled
against the slope, the roaring noise became louder, a deep
unsteady growl like thunder, or an angry sea, or the trou-

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER

447
bled breath of a sleeping dragon. Then the sound began to
change. After a moment, Guthwulf realized that the pas-
sageway was widening. As he turned the corner, his blind
man's senses told him that the hall had not only widened
but grown higher as well. Hot winds billowed toward
him. The grumbling noise echoed strangely.

Another few steps and he knew the reason. There was
some much larger chamber beyond this one, something
vast as the great dome of Saint Sutrin's in Erchester. A
fiery pit? Guthwulf felt his hair wafting in the hot breeze.
Had he somehow arrived at the fabled Lake of Judgment
where sinners were cast into a pool of flame forever? Was
God Himself waiting down here in the rocky fastnesses?
In these confused, distracted days Guthwulf did not re-
member much of his life before the blinding, but what he
did remember now seemed full of foolish, meaningless
actions. If there was such a place, such a punishment, he
doubtless deserved it, but it would be a pity never to feel
the strong magic of the gray sword again.

Guthwulf began taking smaller steps, dragging each
foot in a careful side-to-side arc before setting it down.
His progress slowed as he devoted all his attention to
feeling his way forward. At last his foot touched air. He
stopped and squatted, tapping his fingers along the hot
passage floor. A lip of stone lay before him, stretching on
either side farther than he could reach. Beyond that was
nothing but emptiness and scorching winds.

He stood, shifting from foot to foot as the heat worked
its way through his boot soles, and listened to the great
roaring. There were other sounds, too. One was a deep, ir-
regular clanging, as of two massive pieces of metal crash-
ing together; the other was that of human voices.

The sound of metal on metal came again, and the noise
finally pushed up a memory from his life in the castle of
old. The thunderous clanging was the great forge doors
being opened and closed. Men were throwing fuel into
the blaze—he had seen it many times when he had in-
spected the foundries in his role as King's Hand. He must
be standing at one of the tunnel mouths almost directly

448

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above the huge furnace. No wonder his hair was about to
catch fire!

But the gray sword was here. He knew that as certainly
as a foraging mouse knows when an owl is on the wing
overhead. Elias must be down among the forges, the
sword at his side.

Guthwulf backed away from the edge, thinking franti-
cally of ways he could descend to the foundry floor with-
out being observed.

When he had stood in one place long enough to bum
his feet, he had to move farther away. He cursed as he
went. There was no way to approach the thing. He might
wander through these tunnels for days without finding an-
other route down, and surely Elias would be gone by
then. But neither could he simply give up. The sword
called to him, and it did not care what stood in his way.

Guthwulf stumbled farther down the passageway, away
from the heat, although the sword called to him to come
back, to leap down into fiery oblivion.

"Why have you done this to me, sweet God?!" he
shouted, his voice swiftly disappearing in the roar of the
furnace. "Why have you hung me with this curse?!"

The tears evaporated from his eyelids as swiftly as they
emerged.

^

Inch bowed before King Elias. In the flickering forge
light, the huge man looked like an ape from the southern
jungles—an ape dressed in clothes, but still a poor mock-
ery of a man. The rest of the foundrymen had cast them-
selves to the floor upon the king's entrance; the scatter of
bodies all round the great chamber made it seem as
though his very presence had struck a hundred men dead.

"We are working. Highness, working," Inch grunted.
"Slow work, it is."

"Working?" Elias said harshly. Though the foundry-
master dripped with sweat, the king's pale skin was dry.
"Of course you are working. But you are not finished
with the task I have set, and if I do not hear a reason

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER                           449

quickly, your filthy skin will be flayed and hung to dry
over your own furnace,"

The large man dropped to his knees. "We work as fast
as we can."

"But it is not fast enough." The king's gaze wandered
across the cavern's shadowy roof.

"It is hard, master, hard—we only have parts of the
plans. Sometimes we must make everything over when
we see the next drawing." Inch looked up, his single eye
keen in his dull face as he watched for the king's reaction.

"What do you mean, 'parts of the plans'?" Something
was moving in a tunnel mouth, high on the wall above the
great furnace. The king squinted, but the flirt of pale
color—a face?—was obscured by risking smoke and heat-
jumbled air.

"Your majesty!" someone called. "Here you are!"

Elias turned slowly toward the scarlet-robed figure. He
lifted an eyebrow in mild surprise, but said nothing.

Pryrates hurried up. "I was surprised to find you gone."
His raspy voice was sweeter, more reasonable than usual.
"Can I assist you?"

"I do not need you every moment, priest," Elias said
curtly. "There are things I can do by myself."

"But you have not been well. Majesty." Pryrates lifted
his hand, the red sleeve billowing. For a moment it
seemed he might actually take Ellas' arm and try to lead
him away, but he lifted his fingers to his own head in-
stead, brushing at his hairless scalp. "Because of your
weakness. Majesty, I only feared you might stumble on
these steep stairs."

Elias looked at him, narrowing his eyes until they were
scarcely more than black slits. "I am not an old man,
priest. I am not my father in his last years." He flicked a
glance at the kneeling Inch, then turned back to Pryrates
again. "This clod says that the plans for the castle's de-
fense are difficult."

The alchemist darted a murderous look at Inch. "He
lies. Majesty. You approved them yourself. You know that
is not so."

"You give us only part at a time, priest." Inch's voice

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was deep and slow, but the anger prisoned behind it was
more apparent than ever.

"Do not bandy words before the king!" Pryrates
snarled.

"I tell truth, priest!"

"Silence!" Elias drew himself up- His knob-knuckled
hand fell onto the hilt of the gray sword. "I will have, si-
lence!" he shouted. "Now, what does he mean? Why does
he get the plans only in pieces?"

Pryrates took a deep breath. "For secrecy, King Elias.
You know that several of these foundrymen have run
away already. We dare not let anyone see all the plans for
defense of the castle. What would prevent them running
straight to Josua with what they knew?"

There was a long moment of silence as Pryrates stared
at the king. The air in the forge seemed to change slightly,
thickening, and the roar of the fires grew strangely muf-
fled. The flickering lights threw long shadows.

Elias suddenly seemed to lose interest. "I suppose."
The king's gaze went drifting back to the spot along the
cavern wall where he thought he had seen movement. "I
will send a dozen more men here to the forges—there are
at least that many mercenaries whose looks I do not care
for." He turned to the overseer. "Then you will have no

excuse."

A tremor ran through Inch's wide frame. "Yes, High-
ness."

"Good. I have told you when I wish the work on walls
and gate to be done. You will have it finished."

"Yes, Highness."

The king turned toward Pryrates. "So. I see it takes the
king to make certain things go as they should."

The priest bowed his shiny head. "You are irreplace-
able, sire."

"But I am also a little tired, Pryrates. Perhaps it is as
you said—I have not been well, after all."

"Yes, Highness. Perhaps your healing drink, then a
little sleep?" And now Pryrates did insinuate his hand
beneath Elias' elbow, turning him gently toward the stair-

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER           45!

case leading back up to the castle proper. The king went,
docile as a child.

<t! might lie down for a while, Pryrates, yes ... but 1 do
not think I will sleep just now." He stole a look back at
the wall above the furnace, then shook his head dreamily.

"Yes, sire, an excellent idea. Come, we will let the
forgemaster get on with his work." Pryrates stared point-
edly at Inch, whose one eye looked fixedly back, then the
red priest turned away, his face expressionless, and led
the king out of the cavern.

Behind them, the prostrated workers slowly began
s   clambering to their feet, too beaten and exhausted even to
i-   whisper about such an unusual happening. As they
^   trudged back to their tasks. Inch remained kneeling for
g-   some time, his features as frozen as the priest's had been.

«

Rachel carefully retraced her steps and found the orig-
inal landing once more. To her even greater relief, when
she stared out through the crack, the stairwell was empty.
The White Foxes had gone.

Off to work some kind of deviltry, no doubt. She made
the sign of the Tree.

Rachel pushed a strand of graying hair out of her eyes.
She was exhausted, not only by the dreadful corridor-
tramping—she had walked for what seemed like hours—
but by the shock of near-discovery. She was not a girl
anymore, and she did not like to feel her heart beating as
it had beat today: that was not the racing blood of good
honest work.

Old—you're getting old, woman.

Rachel was not so foolish as to lose all caution, so she
kept her footsteps light and quiet as she made her way
down the stairs, peering cautiously around each comer,
holding her shuttered lantern behind her so it would not
give her away. Thus she saw the king's cupbearer Brother
Hengfisk standing on the stairway below her a moment
before she would have otherwise run into him in the shad-
ows between wall-torches. As it was, her surprise was

452

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still so great that she gave a startled shriek and dropped
her lantern. It rolled thumping down to the landing—her
landing, the location of her sanctuary!—to lie at the
monk's sandal-shod feet as it dripped blazing oil onto the
stone. The pop-eyed man looked down at the flames burn-
ing around his feet with calm interest, then lifted his gaze
to Rachel once more, mouth stretched in a wide grin..

"Merciful Rhiap," Rachel gasped. "Oh, God's mercy!"
She tried to retreat back up the stairwell, but the monk
moved as swiftly as a cat; he was past her in a moment,
then turned to block her passage, still smiling his horrid
smile. His eyes were empty pools.

Rachel took a few tottering steps back down toward the
landing. The monk moved with her, one step at a time,
absolutely silent as he matched his movements to hers.
When Rachel stopped, he stopped. When she tried to
move more swiftly, he headed her off, forcing her
to shrink back against the stone walls of the stairwell to
avoid contact with him. He gave off a feverish warmth,
and there was a strange, alien stink about him, like hot
metal and decaying plants.

She began to cry. Shoulders quivering, unable to hold
up a moment longer, Rachel the Dragon slid down the
wall into a crouch.

"Blessed Elysia, Mother of God," she prayed aloud,
"pure vessel that brings forth the Ransomer, take mercy
on this sinner." She squeezed her eyes shut and made the
Tree sign. "Elysia, raised above all other mortals. Queen
of the Sky and Sea, intercede for your supplicant, so that
mercy may smile upon this sinner."

To her horror, she could not remember the rest of the
words. She huddled, trying to think—oh, her heart, her
heart, it was beating so swiftly!—and waited for the thing
to take her, to touch her with its foul hands. But when
long moments had passed and nothing had happened, her
curiosity overcame even her fear. She opened her eyes.

Hengfisk still stood before her, but the grin was gone.
The monk was leaning against the wall, tugging at his
garments as though surprised to find himself wearing
them. He looked up at her. Something had changed. There

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER                          453

was a new sort of life in the man—cloudy, muddled, but
somehow more human than what had stood before her
moments earlier.

Hengfisk looked down at the pool of burning oil, at the
blue flames licking at his feet, then leaped back, startled.
The flames flickered. The monk's lips moved, but at first
nothing came out.

"... Vad es... ?" he said at last. "... Ufnammen Hott,
vad es... ?"

He continued to stare at Rachel as if bewildered, but
now something else was working behind his eyes. A
tightness came to his features, like an invisible hand
clutching the back of his tonsured head- The lips pulled
taut, the eyes emptied. Rachel gave a little squeak of
alarm. There was something going on that she could not
understand, some struggle inside the pop-eyed man. She
could only stare, terrified-

Hengfisk shook his head like a dog emerging from the
water, looked at Rachel once more, then all around the
stairwell on either side. The expression on his face had
changed again: he looked like a man trapped beneath a
crushing weight. A moment later, without warning,
Hengfisk turned and stumbled op the stairs. She heard his
uneven footfalls winding away into darkness.

Rachel lurched to the tapestry and pulled it aside with
clumsy, shaking fingers. When she had fumbled open the
door, she fell through and pushed it closed behind her.
She shot the bolt before throwing herself onto her mat-
tress and pulling her blanket all the way over her head,
then lay trembling as though she had a fever.

*

The song that had tempted him up from the safer
depths was growing more faint. Guthwulf cursed weakly.
He was too late. Elias was going, taking the gray sword
back up to his throne room, back to that dusty, bloodless
tomb of malachite statues and dragon's bones. Where the
sword's music had been there was now only emptiness, a
gnawing hollow in his being.

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Hopelessly, he chose the next corridor that seemed to
slope downward, retreating from the surface like a worm
unearthed by a shovel. There was a hole in him, a hole
through which the wind would blow and the dust sift. He
was empty.

As the air became more breathable and the stones grew
cool beneath his touch, the little cat found him again. He
could feel its buzzing purr as it wound itself around his
feet, but he did not stop to give it comfort: at that mo-
ment, there was nothing in him to give. The sword had
sung to him, then it had gone away once more. Soon the
idiot voices would return, the ghost-voices, meaningless,
meaningless....

Feeling his way, slow as Time's great wheel, Guthwulf
trudged back down into the depths.

15

Lake of Gloss

A

The noise of their coming was like a great wind, a roar-
ing of bulls, a wildfire sweeping through dry lands. Al-
though they ran on roads unused for centuries, the horses
did not hesitate, but sped along the secret paths that
twined through forest and dale and fen. The old ways, un-
traveled for scores of mortal generations, were on this
day opened again, as though Time's wheel had been
stopped in its rut and turned back on itself.

The Sithi had ridden out of summer into a country
shackled by winter, but as they. passed through the great
forest and across the places of their ancient sovereignty—
hilly Maa'sha, cedar-mantled Peja'ura, Shisae'ron with
her streams, and the black earth of Hekhasor—the land
seemed to move restlessly beneath the tread of their
hooves, as though struggling to awaken from a cold
dream. Birds flew startled from their winter nests and
hung in the air like bumblebees as the Sithi thundered
past; squirrels clung, transfixed, on frozen boughs. Deep
in their dens in the earth, the sleeping bears groaned with
hungry anticipation- Even the light seemed to change in
the wake of the bright company, as beams of sunlight
came needling down through the shrouded sky to sparkle
on the snows.




But winter's grip was strong: when the Sithi had passed
by, its fist soon closed on the forest once more, dragging
everything back down into chill silence.

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Tad Williams

The company did not stop to rest even as the red glow
of sunset drained from the sky and stars glistened be-
tween the tree branches overhead. Nor did the horses
need more than starlight to find their way along the old
roads, though ai! those tracks were covered with the
growth of years. Mortal and earthly the horses were,
made only of flesh and blood, but their sires had been -of
the stock of Venyha Do'sae, brought out of the Garden in
the great flight. When the native horses of Osten Ard still
ran untamed and frightened on the grasslands, ignorant of
hand or bridle, the forebears of these Sithi steeds had rid-
den to war against the giants, or carried messengers along
the roads that spanned from one end to the other of the
bright empire. They had borne their riders as swiftly as a
sea breeze, and so smoothly that Benayha of Kementari
was said to have painted meticulous poems while in the
saddle, with never a smeared character. The mastery of
these roads was bred into them, a knowledge carried in
their wild blood—but their endurance seemed almost a
kind of magic. On this endless day, when the Sithi rode
once more, their steeds seemed to grow stronger as the
hours wore by. As the company sped onward and the sun
began to warm beyond the eastern horizon, the tireless
horses still ran like a surging wave rushing toward the
forest's edge.

If the horses carried ancient blood, their riders were the
history of Osten Ard in living flesh. Even the youngest,
bom since the exile from Asu'a, had seen centuries pass-
The eldest could remember many-towered Tumet'ai in its
springtime, and the glades of fire-bright poppies, miles of
blazing color, that had surrounded Jhina-T'senei before
the sea swallowed her.

Long the Peaceful Ones had hidden from the eyes of
the world, nursing their sadnesses, living only in the
memories of other days. Today they rode in armor as bril-
liant as the plumage of birds, their spears shining like fro-
zen lightning. They sang, for the Sithi had always sung.
They rode, and the old ways unfolded before them, forest
glades echoing to their horses' hoofbeats for the first time

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER

457

since the tallest trees had been seedlings. After a sleep of
centuries, a giant had awakened.
The Sithi were riding.

*

Although he had been battered and bruised to exhaus-
tion during the day's fighting, and had then spent over an
hour after sunset helping Freosel and others to hunt loose
arrows in the icy mud—a chore that would have been
hard in daytime and was cruelly difficult by torchlight—
Simon still did not sleep well. He awoke after midnight
with his muscles aching and his mind running in circles.
The camp was quiet. Wind had swept the skies clean, and
the stars glittered like knife-points.

When it became obvious that sleep was indeed lost, at
least for a while, he got up and made his way to the
watchfires that burned on the hillside above the great barri-
cades. The largest blazed beside one of the weathered Sithi
monument stones, and there he found Binabik and a few
others—Geloe, Father Strangyeard, Sludig, and Deomoth—
sitting with the prince, talking quietly. Josua was drinking
soup from a steaming bowl. Simon guessed that it was the
first nourishment the prince had taken that day.

The prince looked up as Simon stepped into the circle of
light- "Welcome, young knight," he said. "We are all proud
of you. You fulfilled my trust today, as I knew you would."

Simon inclined his head, unsure of what to say. He was
glad of the praise, but troubled by the things he had seen
and done on the ice. He did not feel very noble. "Thank
you. Prince Josua."

He sat huddled in his cloak and listened as the others
discussed the day's battle. He sensed that they were talk-
ing around the central point, but he also guessed that ev-
eryone at the fire knew it as well as he did: they could not
win a battle of attrition with Fengbald. They were too
badly outnumbered. Sesuad'ra was not a castle to be de-
fended against a long siege—there were too many places
where an invading army could gain a foothold. If they
could not stop the earl's forces upon the frozen lake, there

458

Tad Williams

was little else to do but sell their lives as dearly as they

could.

As Deornoth, his head bandaged with a strip of cloth,

told of the fighting tendencies he had seen in the
Thrithings mercenaries, Freosel strode up to the fire. The
constable was still wearing his battle-stained gear, his
hands and wide face dirt-smeared; despite the freezing
temperatures, his forehead was dotted with sweat, as
though he had run all the way down the hill-trail from

New Gadrinsett.

"I come from the settlement. Prince Josua," Freosel

panted. "Helfgrim, Gadrinsett's mayor, is gone."

Josua looked at Deomoth for a moment, then at GeloS.
"Did anyone see him go?"

"He was with others, watching the fighting. No one

saw what happened to him."

The prince frowned. "I do not like that. I hope no harm
has befallen him." He sighed and put down his bowl, then
stood up slowly. "I suppose we must see what we can
find out. There will be scant chance in the morning."

Sludig, who had come up behind Freosel, said: "Your
pardon. Prince Josua, but there is no need to bother your-
self with it. Let others do this so you can rest."

Josua smiled thinly. "Thank you, Sludig, but I have
other tasks up at the settlement as well, so it is no great
effort. Deomoth, Geloe, perhaps you would accompany
me. You, too, Freosel. There are things I would finish dis-
cussing with you." He pushed absently at one of the fire
logs with the toe of his boot, then drew his cloak about
him and moved to the path. Those he had summoned fol-
lowed, but Freosel turned back for a moment and came
and put his hand on Simon's shoulder.

"Sir Seoman, I spoke quick the other day, without

thinking."

Simon was confused, and more than a little embar-
rassed to hear his title in the mouth of this powerful and
competent young man. "I don't know what you mean."

"About the fairy-folk." The Falshireman fixed him
with a serious look. "You may think I made fun, or
showed disrespect. See now, I fear the Peaceful Ones like

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER

459

any God-fearing Aedonite man, but I know they can be
powerful friends, for all that. If summon *em you can, go
to it. We need any help we can get."

Simon shook his head. "I have no power over them,
Freosel—none at all. You don't know what they're like."

"Nor do I, that's true. But if they be your friends, tell
'em we be in hard straits. That's all I have to say." He
turned and went up the path, hurrying to catch the prince
•and the others.

Sludig, who had remained, made a face. "Summon the
Sithi. Hah! It would be easier to summon the wind."

Simon nodded in sad agreement. "But we do need help,
Sludig."

"You are too trusting, lad. We mean little to the Sithi-
folk. I doubt we will see Jiriki again.'* The Rimmersman
frowned at Simon's expression. "Besides, we have our
swords and our brains and our hearts." He hunkered down
before the flames and warmed his hands. "God gives a
man what he deserves, no more, no less." A moment later
he straightened up, restless. "If the prince has no need of
me, I will go and find a place to sleep. Tomorrow will be
bloodier work than today." He nodded at Simon and
Binabik and Strangyeard, then'walked down toward the
barricade, the chain on his sword belt clinking faintly.

Simon sat watching him go, wondering if Sludig was
right about the Sithi, dismayed because of the feeling of
loss that idea brought.

"The Rimmersman is angry." The archivist sounded
surprised by his own words. "I mean, that is, I scarcely
know him ..."

"It is my thinking you speak the truth, Strangyeard."
Binabik looked down at the piece of wood he had been
carving. "Some folk there are who are not liking much to
be beneath others, especially when it was once being oth-
erwise. Sludig has become again a foot-soldier, after be-
ing chosen for questing and bringing back a great prize."
The troll's words were thoughtful, but his face was un-
happy, as though he shared the Rimmersman's pain. "I
am afraid for him to be fighting in battle with that feeling
in his heart—we have shared a friendship since our trav-

4&o Tad Williams

els in the north, but he has seemed dark and sad-hearted
to me since coming here."

A silence fell on the tittle gathering, broken only by the
crackle of the flames.

"What about what he said?" Simon asked abruptly. "Is

he right?"

Binabik looked at him inquiringly. "What are you
meaning, Simon? About the Sithi?"

"No. *God gives a man what he deserves, no more, no
less,' that's what Sludig said." Simon turned to
Strangyeard. "Is that true?"

The archivist, flustered, looked away; after a moment,
though, he turned back and met Simon's gaze. "No, Si-
mon. I don't think that is true. But I cannot know the
mind of God, either."

"Because my friends Morgenes and Haestan certainly
didn't get what they deserved—one burned and one
crushed by a giant's club." Simon could not keep the bit-
terness from his voice-

Binabik opened his mouth as though he would say
something, but seeing Strangyeard had done the same, the
troll stayed silent-

"I believe that God has plans, Simon." The archivist
spoke carefully, "And it may be that we simply do not un-
derstand them ... or it may be that God Himself does not
quite know how His plans will work out."

"But you priests are always saying that God knows ev-
erything!"

"He may have chosen to forget some of the more pain-
ful things," Strangyeard said gently. "If you lived forever,
and experienced every pain in the world as though it were
your own—died with every soldier, cried with every
widow and orphan, shared every mother's grief at the
passing of a beloved child—would you not perhaps yearn
to forget, too?"

Simon looked into the shifting flames of the fire. Like
the Sithi, he thought, trapped with their pain forever.
Craving an ending, as Amerasu had said.

Binabik carved a few more chips from the piece of
wood. It was beginning to take a shape that might be a

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER                           461

wolf's head, prick-eared and long of muzzle. "If I am al-
lowed the asking, friend Simon, is there a reason that
Sludig's saying struck you with such strongness?"

Simon shook his head. "I just don't know how to ... to
be. These men have come to kill us—I want them all to
die, painfully, horribly.... But Binabik, these are the
Erkynguard! I knew them at the castle. Some of them
used to give me sweets, or lift me up on their horses and
tell me I reminded them of their own sons." He fidgeted
with a stick, scuffing at the muddy soil. "Which is right?
How could they do these things to us, who never did them
any harm? But the king is making them, so why should
they be killed, any more than us?"

Binabik's lips curled in a tiny smile. "I notice you are
not having worries about the mercenaries—no, say noth-
ing, there is no need! It is hard to feel sorry for those who
are searching out war for gold." He slipped the half-
finished carving into his jacket and began to reassemble
his walking-stick, socketing the knife back into the long
handle. "The questions you are asking are important ones,
but they are also questions without answers. This is what
being a man or woman means, I am thinking, instead of
a boy or girl child; you must be finding your own solu-
tion to questions that are having no true answers." He
turned to Strangyeard. "Do you have Morgenes' book
somewhere that is near, or is it now up in the settlement?"

The archivist had been staring into the flames, lost in
thought. "What?" he said, suddenly rousing. 'The book,
you say? Oh, heavenly pastures, I carry it with me every-
where! How could I trust it left in some place un-
watched?" He turned abruptly and looked shyly at Simon.
"Of course, it is not mine—please do not think I have for-
gotten your kindness, Simon, in letting me read it. You
cannot imagine how wonderful it has been, having Mor-
genes' words to savor!"

Simon felt an almost pleasurable twinge of regret at the
memory of Morgenes. How he missed that good old man!
"It is not mine, either. Father Strangyeard. He merely
gave it to me for safekeeping so that eventually people
like you and Binabik would be able to read it." He smiled

462

Tad Williams

gloomily. "I think that is what I am learning these days—
that nothing is really mine. I thought for a time that Thorn
was meant for me, but I doubt it now. I have been given
other things, but none of them quite do what they are sup-
posed to. I'm glad someone is getting good use of Mor-

genes* words."

"We all are getting such use." Binabik smiled back, l?ut
his tone was serious. "Morgenes planned for us all in this

dark time."

"Just a moment." Strangyeard scrambled to his feet. He
returned a moment later with his sack, inadvertently spill-
ing its contents—a Book of the Aedon, a scarf, a water
skin, a few small coins and gewgaws—in his effort to get
to the manuscript lodged firmly at the bottom. "Here it
is," he said in triumph, then paused. "Why was I looking

for it?"

"Because I was asking if you had it," Binabik ex-
plained. "There is a passage I think Simon would find of
great interestingness."

The troll took the proffered manuscript and leafed
through it with delicate care, frowning as he tried to read
by the uncertain light of the campfire. It did not seem that
it would be a very swift process, so Simon got up to
empty his bladder. The wind was chilly along the hillside,
and the white lake below, which he glimpsed through a
break in the trees, looked like a place for phantoms.
When he got back to the fire he was shivering.

"Here, I have found it." Binabik waved the page.
"Would you prefer reading for yourself, or should I go to

reading it for you?"

Simon smirked at the troll's solicitousness. "You love
to read things at me. Go ahead."

"It is in the interest of your continuing education,
only," Binabik said mock-severely. "Listen: 'In fact,'
Morgenes writes,

'the debate as to who was the greatest knight in
Aedondom was for many years a source of argu-
ment everywhere, in both the corridors of the
Sancellan Aedonitis in Nabban and the taverns of

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER

Erkynland and Hemystir. It would be difficult to
claim that Camaris was the inferior of any man,
but he seemed to take so little joy in combat that
for him warfare might have been a penance, his
own great skills a form of punishment. Often.
when honor compelled him to fight in tourna-
ments, he would hide the kingfisher-crest of his
house beneath a disguise, thus to prevent his foes
from being overmatched simply by awe. He was
also known to give himself incredible handicaps,
such as fighting with his left hand only. not out of
bravado, but out of what I myself guess was a
dreadful desire to have someone, somewhere, fi-
nally best him, thus removing from his shoulders
the burden of being Osten Ard's preeminent
knight—and hence a target for every drunken
brawler as well as the inspiration of every bal-
ladeer. When fighting in war, even the priests of
Mother Church agreed, his admirable humility
and mercy to a beaten foe seemed almost to
stretch too far, as though he longed for honorable
defeat, for death. His feats of arms, which were
talked about across the length and breadth of
Osten Ard, were to Camaris acts almost shame-
ful.

'Once Tallistro of Perdrum had been killed by
ambush in the first Thrithings War—a treachery
made famous in almost as many songs as tell of
Camaris' exploits—it was only John himself who
could ever be considered a rival to Camaris for
the title of Aedondom's greatest warrior. Indeed,
none would have suggested that even Prester
John, as mighty as he was, could have defeated
Sir Camaris in an open fight: after Nearulagh,
the battle in which they met, Camaris was careful
never even to spar with John again, for fear of
upsetting the delicate balance of their friendship.
But where Camaris' skills were to him an oner-
ous burden, and the prosecution of war—even
those wars that Mother Church sanctioned and,

464                   Tad Williams

some might say, occasionally encouraged—was
for Nabban's greatest knight a trial and a source
of grief. Prester John was a man who never
seemed happier than on the battlefield. He was
not cruel—no defeated foe was ever shown less
than fairness by him, except for the Sithi, against
whom John held some private but powerful ill-
feelings, and whom he persecuted until they have
all but vanished from the sight of mortal men. But
since some would argue that the Sithi are not
men, and therefore do not have souls—although I
myself would not so argue—it could then be said
that all John's enemies were treated in a way that
even the most scrupulous churchman would have
to call just and merciful. And to his subjects, even
the pagan Hemystiri, John was a generous king.
It was only in those times when the carpet of war
was spread before him that he became a danger-
ous weapon. Thus it was that Mother Church, in
whose name he conquered, named him—in grati-
tude and perhaps a bit of quiet fear—the Sword
of the Lord.

'So the argument raged, and does to this day:

who was the greater? Camaris, the most skillful
man to lift a sword in human memory? Or John,
only slightly less proficient, but a leader of men,
and himself a man who welcomed a just and
godly war... ?' "

Binabik cleared his throat. "And, as he is telling that
the argument went on, so Morgenes himself is going on
for several pages more, talking in greater depth of this
question, which was of great importantness in its day—or
was anyway thought to be of such importantness."

"So Camaris killed better but liked it less than King
John did?" Simon asked. "Why did he do it, then? Why
not become a monk, or a hermit?"

"Ah, that is being the nub of what you were earlier
wondering, Simon," Binabik said, his dark eyes intent.
"That is why the writing of great thinkers is being such a

TO   GREEN   ANOEL   TOWER                           465

help to the rest of us in our own thinking. Here Morgenes
has put the words and names in a different way, but it is
the same questioning as yours: is it right to be killing,
even if it is what your master or country or church
wishes? Is it better to kill but not to enjoy it, or to not kill
at all, and then perhaps be seeing bad things happen to
those who you are loving?"
[      "Does Morgenes give an answer?"

"No." Binabik shook his head. "As I said, the wise
know that these questions have no true answers. Life is
-1    made from these wonderings, and from the answers that
f    we each and every one are finding for ourselves."
%      "Just for once, Binabik, I want you to tell me there is
c\    an answer for something. I'm tired of thinking so much."

The troll laughed. "The punishment for being bom ...
no, perhaps that is too much to be calling that. The pun-
ishment for being truly alive—that is fair to say. Wel-
come, Simon, to the world of those who are every day
condemned to thinking and wondering and never ever
knowing with certainness."

Simon snorted. "Thank you,"

"Yes, Simon," There was strange, somber eamestness
in Strangyeard's voice- "Welcome. 1 pray that someday
you will be glad that your decisions were not simple
ones."

"How could that be?"

Strangyeard shook his head. "Forgive me for saying the
kind of things that old men say, Simon, but ... you will
see."

Simon stood up. "Very well. Now that you have made
my head spin, I will do as Sludig did: go away in disgust
and try to sleep." He put his hand on Binabik's shoulder,
then turned to the archivist, who was reverently placing
Morgenes' book back in his bag. "Good night, Father
Strangyeard. Be well. Good night, Binabik."

"Good night, friend Simon."

He heard the troll and the priest talking quietly as he
walked back to his sleeping spot- It made him feel a little
safer, for some reason, to know that such folk were
awake.

466 Tad Williams

In the last moments before dawn, Deomoth had run out
of tasks. His sword had been sharpened, then sharpened
again. He had reattached several buckles that had been
torn from his byrnie, which had required hard, finger-
cramping work with a tack-needle, and then laboriously
cleaned the mud from his boots. Now he would either
have to remain barefoot but for the rags that wrapped his
feet—a cold, cold condition—until it was time to move
out onto the ice, or put his boots back on and stay where
he was. A single step across the muddy ruin that was the
encampment would certainly undo his careful work. The
footing was going to be bad enough without slick mud on
his boot soles to make it worse.

As the sky began to pale, Deomoth listened to some of
his men singing quietly. He had never fought beside any
of them before yesterday. They were a tattish army, no
doubt: many of them had never wielded a sword before,
and of those who had, more than a few were so old that
back in their shareholdings they had not come to the sea-
sonal muster for years. But fighting in defense of home
could turn even the mildest fanner into an enemy to be
reckoned with, and this bare stone was home now to
many. Deomoth's men, under the leadership of those few
of their number who had actually served under arms, had
acquitted themselves bravely—very bravely indeed. He
only wished he had something better to offer them in the
way of reward than this coming day's slaughter.

He heard the sucking noise of horses' hooves in mud;

the quiet murmur of the men around him died away. He
turned to see a small group of riders winding their way
down the trail that ran through the camp. Foremost
among them was a tall, slender figure mounted on a
chestnut stallion, his cloak rippling in the strong wind.
Josua was ready at last. Deomoth sighed and stood up,
waving for the rest of his troops as he grabbed his boots.
The time for woolgathering was past. Still unshod, still
postponing that inevitable moment, he went to join his
prince.

TO  GREEN   ANGEL  TOWER

467

At first there were few surprises in the second day's
fighting. It was bloody work, as Sludig had prophesied,
breast to breast, blade against blade; by mid-moming the
ice was washed in red and ravens were feasting on the
outskirts of combat.

Those who survived this battle would call it by many
names: to Josua and his closest company, it was the Siege
of Sesuad'ra. For the captains of Fengbald's Erkynland-
ish troops, it was Stefflod Valley; to the mercenary
Thrithings-men, the Battle of the Stone. But for most who
remembered it, and few did without a shudder, the name
that was most evocative was the Lake of Glass.

War surged back and forth across Sesuad'ra's icy moat
all morning long as first one side and then the other
gained a momentary advantage. At first the Erkynguard,
embarrassed by their showing the day before, pressed the
attack so strongly that the Stone's defenders were driven
back against their own barricades. They might have been
cut down then, overwhelmed by superior numbers, but
Josua rode forth on fiery Vinyafod, leading a small
mounted group of Hotvig's Thrithings-men, and caused
enough dismay in the flanks of the king's soldiers that
they could not push their advantage to its fullest extent.
The arrows that Freosel and the other defenders had scav-
enged flew down from the hillside, and the green-liveried
Erkynguard were forced to draw back out of range, wait-
ing until the missiles were spent- Red-cloaked Duke
Fengbald rode back and forth in a clear section of ice at
mid-lake, waving his sword and gesticulating.

His troops attacked again, but this time the defenders
were ready and the wave of mounted Erkynguard broke
against the great log walls. A sallying force from the hill-
side then pierced the green line and stabbed deep into the
middle of Fengbald's forces. They were not strong
enough to split the duke's army, or the battle might have
gone very differently, but even when they were thrown
back with heavy losses, it was clear that Deomoth's
farmer-soldiers had found a renewed determination. They




468 Tad Williams

knew they could fight on this field as near-equals; it was
clear that they would not give up their home to the king's
swords without exacting a bloody price.

The sun reached the tips of the treeline, morning light
just spilling onto the far side of the valley. The ice was
again thick with mist. Down in the murk, the fighting
grew desperate as men struggled not just with each other
but with the treacherous battlefield as well. Both sides
seemed determined that things would be finished by
nightfall, the issue settled forever. From the number of
unmoving shapes that already lay sprawled across the fro-
zen lake, there seemed little doubt that by afternoon, there
would be few of Sesuad'ra's defenders left to contest the
matter.

Within the first hour after dawn, Simon had forgotten
about Camaris, about Prester John, even about God. He
felt like a boat caught in a terrible storm, but the waves
that threatened to drown him had faces and carried sharp
blades. There was no attempt today to hold the trolls in
reserve. Josua had felt sure that Fengbald would simply
throw his men against Sesuad'ra's defenders until they
were beaten down, so there was little point in trying to
surprise anyone. There was no order of battle, only a
skeleton of battlefield command, tattered banners and dis-
tant horns. The opposing armies rushed together, hit, and
clung to each other like drowning men, then withdrew
again to rest before the next surge, leaving the bodies of
the fallen splayed across the misty lake.

As the Erkynguard's assault pressed the defenders back
against the barricades, Simon saw the troll-herder
Snenneq skewered by an Erkynguardsman's lance, lifted
completely out of his ram-saddle and pinned against one
of the barricade tree trunks. Although the troll was un-
doubtedly dead or dying, the armored guardsman jerked
his weapon free and pierced the small body again as it
slid down the wall, twisting the lance as though killing an
insect. Simon, maddened, spurred Homefinder through a
gap in the crush of men and brought his sword around
with all the strength he could muster, nearly beheading

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER            469

the guardsman, who crashed off his horse and fell to the
frozen lake, fountaining blood. Simon bent and caught at
Snenneq's hide jacket, pulling him up from the ground
with one hand without even feeling the weight. The troll's
head bobbed; his brown eyes stared sightlessly. Simon
cradled the small, stocky form against his own body,
heedless of the blood that soaked his breeches and saddle.

Sometime later he found himself on the edge of the
battle. Snenneq's body was gone. Simon did not know if
he had put it down or dropped it; he did not remember
anything but the dead troll's astonished, frightened face.
There had been blood on the little man's lips and between
his teeth.

It was easy to hate if he did not think, Simon discov-
ered- If he saw the faces of enemies only as pale smears
within their helmets, if he saw their open mouths as hor-
rid black holes, it was easy to ride at them and smash
them with all his strength, to try and separate the knobby
heads and flailing limbs from the bodies until the hated
things were dead. He also found that if he was not afraid
of dying—and at this moment he was not: he felt as
though all his fear had been charred away—it was easy to
survive. The men against whom he rode, even though
they were trained fighting men, many of them veterans of
several battles, seemed frightened by Simon's single-
minded assaults. He swung and swung, each blow as hard
' or harder than the last. When they lifted their own weap-
ons, he swung at their arms and hands. If they fell back
to try to lure him off-balance, he rode Homefinder full
into their sides and battered away as Ruben the Bear had
once pounded red-hot metal in the Hayholt's stables.
Sooner or later, Simon discovered, the look of fear would
creep into their eyes, the whites flashing in the depths of
their helmets. Sooner or later they would shy back, but
Simon would hammer on, slashing and hewing, until they
fled or fell. Then he would suck air deep into his lungs,
hearing little but the impossibly fast drumbeat of his own
heart, until anger rebirthed his strength and he went riding
on in search of something else to hack.

Blood spurted, hovering for long moments like a red

470

Tad Williams

mist. Horses fell, legs kicking convulsively. The noise of
battle was so loud as to be virtually unbearable. As he
pushed through the carnage, Simon felt his arms turn to
iron—rigid, hard as the blade he held in his hand; he had
no horse, but rather four strong legs that took him where
he wished to go. He was spattered in red, some of it his
own, but he felt nothing but fire inside his chest and. &
spastic need to beat down the things that had come to
steal his new home and slaughter his friends.

Simon did not know it, but beneath his helm, his face
was wet with tears.

A curtain seemed to draw away at last, letting light into
the dark room of Simon's bestial thoughts. He was some-
where near the middle of the lake and someone was
calling his name.

"Simon!" It was a high voice, yet strange. For a mo-
ment he was not quite sure where he was, "Simon!" the
voice called again.

He looked down, searching for the one who had spo-
ken, but the foot-soldier who lay crumpled there would
never call to anyone again. Simon's horrifying numbness
melted a little further. The corpse belonged to one of
Fengbald's soldiers. Simon turned away, unwilling to
look at the man's slack face.

"Simon, come!" It was Sisqi, followed by two of her
troll-kin, riding toward him. Even as he brought
Homefinder around to face the new arrivals, he could not
help looking at the yellow slot-eyes of their saddle-rams.
What were they thinking? What could animals think of
such a thing as this?

"Sisqi." He blinked. "What... ?"

"Come, come fast!" She gestured with her spear to-
ward a place closer to the barricades. The battle was still
swirling, and although Simon stared hard, he knew it
would take someone like old Jamauga to make any sense
out of such chaos.

"What is it?"

"Help your friend! Your Croohok! Come!"

Simon kicked his heels against Homefinder's ribs and

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER

471

followed the trolls as they neatly wheeled their rams
about. Homefinder lurched as she struggled across the
slippery lake surface after them. Simon could tell that
the horse was tired, dreadfully tired. Poor Homefinder!
He should stop and give her water ... let her sleep ...
sleep ... Simon's own head was pounding, and his right
arm felt as though it had been beaten with clubs.

Aedon 's mercy, what have 1 done? What have I done to-
day?

The trolls led him back into the knot of battle. The men
he saw around him were exhausted almost to heedless-
ness, like South Islander slaves sent to fight in the old
Nabbanai arenas. Foes seemed to hold each other up as
they struck, and the clang of weaponry had a dolorous,
off-key sound, like a hundred cracked bells pealing.

Sludig and a knot of defenders were surrounded by
Thrithings mercenaries. The Rimmersman had an ax in
each hand. He had been unhorsed, but even as he strug-
gled to keep his footing on the ice he held two scarfaced
Thrithings-men at bay. Simon and the trolls came on as
swiftly as the footing would allow, falling on Sludig's at-
tackers from behind. Although Simon's cramping arm
failed to strike a clean blow, his blade struck near the un-
protected tail of one of the Thrithings-men's horses, mak-
ing the creature rear suddenly. Its rider crashed to the ice,
where he was quickly savaged by Sludig's companions.
The Rimmersman used the skidding, riderless horse as a
shield against his other enemy, then was able to get a foot
into the stirrup and clamber into the saddle, bringing one
of his axes up just in time to ward a blow from the
Thrithings-man's curved sword. Their weapons clanked
together twice more, then Sludig, roaring wordlessly,
hooked the man's blade from his grip with one ax and
buried the other in the mercenary's head, smashing down
through the stiff leather helmet as though it were an egg-
shell. He put his boot in the man's chest and wrenched
the ax free; the mercenary flopped over his horse's neck,
then slid heavily to the ground.




Simon shouted to Sludig, then turned quickly as an-
other surge of the struggle pushed a riderless horse heav-

472

Tad Williams

ily against Homefmder's shoulder, almost jarring him out
of his seat. He clutched at the reins, then righted himself
and kicked at the panicking creature, which whinnied and
scrambled for purchase on the ice before scrambling

away.

The Rimmersman stared at Simon for a moment as
though he did not recognize him. His yellow beard was
spattered with drops of blood, and his chain mail was bro-
ken and torn in several places. "Where is Deomoth?"

"I don't know! I just got here!" Simon lifted himself
higher in the saddle to look around, clutching Homefinder
with his knees.

"He was cut off." Sludig stood in his own stirrups.
"There! I see his cloak!" He pointed into a clot of
Thrithings-men nearby, in whose midst there was a flash
of blue. "Come!" Sludig spurred the mercenary's horse
ahead. The beast, fitted with no special iron spikes,
slipped and skidded.

Simon called for Sisqi and her friends, who were
calmly spearing wounded Thrithings-men. The daughter
of the Herder and Huntress barked something to her com-
panions in the Qanuc tongue and they all cantered after
Simon and Sludig.

The sky had grown darker overhead as clouds had cov-
ered the sun. Now a flurry of tiny snowflakes began to fill
the air. The mist seemed to be growing thicker, too. Si-
mon thought he saw a flash of crimson moving in the
dark sea of struggling men not far beyond Sludig. Could
it be Fengbald? Here, in the middle of things? It seemed
impossible the duke would take such a risk when numbers
and experience were on his side.

Simon had less than a moment to ponder this unlikely
possibility before Sludig had crashed into the clump of
Thrithings-men, laying about indiscriminately with his
axes. Although two men fell wounded before the
Rimmersman, opening his way, Simon saw that others
were moving into the gap, several of them still on horse-
back: Sludig would be surrounded. Simon's sense of un-
reality became even stronger. What was he doing here?
He was no soldier! This was madness. Yet what else

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER

473

could he do? His friends were being hurt and killed. He
spurred forward, slashing at the bearded mercenaries.
Each blow now leaped up his arm, a pain like a tongue of
fire that he felt through his shoulders into the base of his
skull. He heard the strange yipping cries of Sisqi and her
Qanuc behind him. then suddenly he was through.

Sludig had climbed down off his horse. He was kneel-
ing beside a figure in a cloak the color of an early eve-
ning sky. It was Deomoth, and his face was very pale.
Beneath Josua's knight, half-covered by his blue cloak, a
hugely-muscled Thrithings-man lay on his back, staring
sightlessly at the cloudy sky, a crust of blood on his lips.
With the sharpened clarity of near-madness, Simon saw a
snowflake flutter down to land on the mercenary's opened
eye.

"It is the leader of the mercenaries," Sludig shouted
over the clamor. "Deomoth has killed him."

"But Deomoth, is he alive?"

Sludig was already struggling to lift the knight from the
ice- Simon looked around to see if they were in immedi-
ate danger, but the mercenaries had been lured away to
some other pocket of the shifting chaos. Simon quickly
dismounted and helped Sludig lift Deomoth onto the sad-
dle. The Rimmersman climbed up and clutched at the
knight, who sagged like an understuffed doll.

"Bad," Sludig said. "He is bad. We must get him back
to the barricades."

He set out at a trot. Sisqi and the other two trolls fell
in behind him. The Rimmersman steered his horse in a
wide arc, heading for the outer fringe of the killing
ground and comparative safety.

Simon could only lean against Homefinder's side, pant-
ing, staring at Sludig's back and Deomoth's slack face
bouncing beside the Rimmersman's shoulder. Things
were as bad as could be imagined. Jiriki and his Sithi
were not coming. God had not seen fit to rescue the vir-
tuous. If only this whole nightmarish day could be wished
away. Simon shivered. It seemed almost that if he closed
his eyes this would all be gone, that he would wake in his




474

Tad Williams

bed in the Hayholt's serving quarters, the spring sunlight
crawling across the flagstones outside....

He shook his head and struggled into the saddle, legs
trembling. He spurred Homefinder forward. No time to let
the mind wander. No time.

There was the flash of red again, just to his right. He
turned and saw a figure m crimson, sitting on a white
horse. The mounted man's helm was furnished with silver
wings.

Fengbald!

Slowly, as though the ice had turned to sticky honey
beneath his horses' hooves, Simon reined up and turned
toward the armored man- Surely this was a dream! The
duke was behind a small knot of Erkynguardsmen, but his
attention seemed fixed on the fighting just before him. Si-
mon, at the outer edge of the battle, had a clear path. He
spurred Homefinder forward.

As he moved closer, picking up speed, the silver helmet
seemed to grow before him, dazzling even in the murky
light. The crimson cloak and bright chain mail were like
a wound on the dim darkness of the far-away trees.

Simon shouted, but the figure did not turn. He kicked
his boot-irons against Homefinder's side. She made a
huffing noise and increased her pace; foam flew from her
lips. "Fengbald!" Simon screamed again, and this time
the duke seemed to hear. The closed helm swiveled to-
ward Simon, the eye-slit blankly inscrutable. The duke
lifted his sword with one hand and tugged at his reins to
bring his horse around to face this attacker. Fengbald
seemed slow, as if underwater, as though he, too, found
himself in some terrible dream.

Beneath his own helm, Simon's lips skinned back from
his teeth. A nightmare, then. He would be Fengbald's
nightmare, this time. He swung his own sword back, feel-
ing the muscles in his shoulders jump and strain. As
Homefinder swept down on the duke, Simon brought his
sword around with both hands. It met the duke's blade
with a shivering impact that nearly pushed Simon back-
ward out of the saddle, but something yielded at the blow.
When he was past, and had straightened himself in the

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

475

saddle, he turned Homefinder around in a careful half-
circle. Fengbald had fallen from his horse and his sword
had been knocked from his hand. The duke lay on his
back, struggling to rise.

Simon vaulted from the saddle and promptly slipped,
falling forward to land painfully on elbows and knees. He
crawled to where the duke still fought for balance, then
rose on his knees and brought the flat of his sword
against the shining helm as hard as he could. The duke
fell back, arms spread wide like the wings of the silver
eagle on his surcoat. Simon clambered on top of him and
squatted on his chest. He, Simon, had beaten Duke
Fengbald! Had they won, then? Panting, he darted a quick
look around him, but no one seemed to have seen. Neither
was there any sign that the fighting had been resolved—
clots of figures still thrashed in the mist all across the
lake. Could he have won the battle without anyone notic-
ing?

Simon pulled his Qanuc knife from the sheath and
pressed it against Fengbald's throat, then fumbled at the
duke's helm. He worked it free at last, tugging it loose
with little regard for its owner's comfort. He tossed it
aside- It spun on the ice as Simon leaned forward.

His prisoner was a middle-aged man, bald where he
was not gray. His bloodied mouth was missing most of its
teeth. He was not Fengbald.

" 'S Bloody Tree'" Simon swore. The world was col-
lapsing. Nothing was real. He stared at the surcoat, at the
falcon-winged helmet lying just inches away. They were
Fengbald's, there was no question- But this was not the
duke.

Tricked!" Simon groaned. "Oh, God, we have been
tricked like children." There was a cold knot in his stom-
ach. "Mother of Aedon—where is Fengbald!?"

*

Far across Osten Ard to the west, far from the concerns
of Sesuad'ra's defenders, a small procession emerged
from a hole in the Grianspog mountainside like a troop of

476

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white mice released from a cage. As they left the shad-
owy tunnels they stopped, blinking and squinting in the
snow-glare.

The Hemystiri, only a few hundred all told, most of
them women, children, and old men, milled in confusion
on the rocky shelf outside the cavern. Maegwin sensed
that with any prompting at all they would quickly dash.
back into the safety of the caves once more. The balance
was very delicate. It had taken a great effort on
Maegwin's part, all her powers of persuasion, to convince
her people even to set out on this seemingly doomed jour-         ;

ney.                                                           i ^

Gods of our forefathers, she thought, Brynioch and         •
Rhynn, where is our backbone!? Only Diawen, breathing
deeply of the cold air with her arms lifted as if in ritual
celebration, seemed to understand the glory of this march.        .-;

The expression on the lined face of Old Craobhan left no        ^
doubt as to what he thought of this foolishness. But the        ,1*
rest of her subjects seemed mostly fearful, looking for        M
some portent, some excuse to turn back again.                 ^

They needed prodding, that was all. It was frightening        H
for mortals to live as their deities wished them to—it was        ^
a greater responsibility than most wished to bear.        ||
Maegwin took a deep breath.                                 H

"Great days are before us, people of Hernystir," she        H
cried. "The gods wish us to go down the mountain to face        %.
our enemies—the enemies who have stolen our houses,        s
our farms, our cattle and pigs and sheep- Remember who        f
you are' Come with me!"                                   f:

She strode forward onto the path. Slowly, reluctantly,        H.
her followers fell into step behind her, shivering despite        |t
being wrapped in the warmest clothing they had been able
to find. Many of the children were crying.

"Amoran," she called. The harper, who had been walk-
ing a little distance behind—perhaps hoping that he could
fall far enough back that his presence would not be
missed—came forward, leaning against the force of the
wind.

"Yes, my lady?"

"Walk beside me," she directed. Amoran took a look

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER                           477

down at the mountain's sheer, snowy face just beyond the
narrow path, then quickly looked away again. "I want you
to play a song," Maegwin said.

"What song. Princess?"

"Something that everyone knows the words to. Some-
thing that lifts the heart." She pondered as she walked.
Amoran looked nervously down at his feet. "Play 'The
Lily of the Cuimnhe.' "

"Yes, my lady." Amoran lifted his harp and began to
pick out the opening strains, working it through a few
times to let his chilled fingers warm. Then he began in
earnest, playing loudly so that those behind could easily
hear.

"The Hernysadharc rose is fair."

he sang, lifting his voice above the wind that prowled
the mountainside and stirred the trees,

"As red as blood, as white as snow,
But still unplucked I'll leave it there
For I have somewhere else. to go."

One by one at first, then in bunches, others of
Maegwin's band began to pick up the verses of the famil-
iar song.

"At Inniscrich the violets grow
As dark as skies of early night,
But I'll not have them, even so
For I prefer my beauties bright.

"Near Abaingeat the daisies bloom
Like stars a-twinkle in the sky,
But I will leave them in the coomb
I cannot stop; I must pass by.

"The sweetest flower of all, she grows
Where river past sweet meadow flows,

4?8

Tad Williams

And where she blossoms I will go:

The Lily of the Cuimhne.

"When someday winter's winds shall blow
When leaves are withered, sap is slow,
I will recall this love, I know:

The Lily of the Cuimnhe ..."

By the refrain, scores of people had joined in. The pace
of the marching feet seemed to increase, to match itself to
the rhythm of the old song. The voices of Maegwin's peo-
ple rose until they outshouted the wind—and strangely,
the wind grew weaker, as if acknowledging defeat.

The remnants of Hemysadharc marched down from
their mountain retreat, singing.

They stopped on a shelf of snow-swept rock, and ate
their midday meal beneath the dim and straining sun.
Maegwin walked among her people, paying special atten-
tion to the children. She felt happy and fulfilled for the
first time in long memory: Lluth's daughter was finally
doing what she was meant to do. Satisfied at last, she felt
her love for the people of Hemystir come bubbling up—
and her people felt it, too. Some of the older folk might
still have misgivings about this mad undertaking, but to
the children it was a wonderful lark; they followed
Maegwin through the camp, laughing and shouting, until
even the worried parents were able to forget for a while
the danger into which they were traveling, to put aside
their doubts. After all, how could the princess be so full
of light and truth if the gods were not with her?

As for Maegwin, virtually all her own doubts had been
left on Bradach Tor. She had the entire company singing
again and on their way before the noon hour had passed.

When they reached the bottom of the mountain at last,
her people seemed to gain hope. For all but a few of
them, this was the first time they had touched the mead-
ows of Hernystir since the Rimmersgard troops had
driven them into the high places half a year before. They
were returning home,

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER                           479

The first of Skali's pickets came forward in a rush as
they saw a small army descending from the Ghanspog,
but reined up in surprise, the hooves of their horses dig-
ging up great gouts of powdery snow, when they saw that
the army bore no weapons—in fact, carried nothing at all
in their arms but swaddled infants. The Rimmersmen,
hardened warriors every one, undaunted by the confusion
and horror of battle, stared in consternation at Maegwin
and her troop.

"Stop!" the leader cried. He was all but hidden in his
helmet and fur-lined cloak, and for a moment seemed a
startled badger blinking in the door of its sett. "Going
where are you?"

Maegwin made a haughty face at his poor command of
the Westerling tongue. "We are going to your master,
Skali of Kaldskryke."

The soldiers looked, if possible, even more bewil-
dered. "So many to surrender are not needed," the leader
said. 'Tell the women and children for waiting here. Men
with us will come."

Maegwin scowled. "Fool. We do not come to surren-
der. We come to take our land back." She waved. Her fol-
lowers, who had stopped white she spoke to the soldiers,
surged forward once more.

The Rimmersmen fell in beside them like dogs trying
to herd a flock of unimpressed and hostile sheep.

As they made their way across the snowy meadowlands
between the foothills and Hernysadharc, Maegwin felt an-
ger growing within her once more, anger that for a while
had been overwhelmed by the glory of positive action.
Here stand after stand of ancient trees, oak and beech and
alder, had been leveled by Rimmersgard axes, their car-
casses stripped of bark and dragged away across the rut-
ted ground. Skali's soldiers and their horses had churned
the earth around their camps to frozen mud, and the ashes
of their countless fires blew across the gray snow. The
very face of the land was wounded and suffering—no
wonder the gods were unhappy! Maegwin looked around
and saw her own fury mirrored in the faces of her follow-
ers, their few lingering doubts now vanishing like water

48o

Tad Williams

drops on a hot stone. The gods would make this place
clean again, with their help. How could anyone doubt that

it would be so?

At last, as the afternoon sun hung swollen in the gray
sky, they reached the outskirts of Hernysadharc itself.
They were now part of a much larger crowd: during the
slow approach of Maegwin's folk, many of the
Rimmersmen had drifted in from the encampments to
watch this odd spectacle, until it seemed that the whole
occupying army trailed along after them. The combined
company, nearing perhaps a thousand souls, made its way
through the narrow, spiraling streets of Hernysadharc to-
ward the king's house, the Taig.

When they reached the great cleared place atop the hil-
lock, Skali of Kaldskryke was waiting for them, standing
before the Taig's vast oaken doors. The Rimmersman was
dressed in his dark armor as though waiting for a fight,
and he carried his raven-helm under his arm. He was sur-
rounded by his household guard, a legion of grim,

bearded men.

Many of Maegwin's people now, at this late moment,
felt their courage suddenly falter. As Skali's own
Rimmersmen kept to a respectful distance, so, too, did
many of Maegwin's company slow and begin to hang
back. But Maegwin and a few others—Old Craobhan, al-
ways the loyal servant, was one of them—strode forward.
Maegwin moved without fear or hesitation toward the
man who had conquered and brutally subjugated her

country.

"Who are you, woman?" Skali demanded. His voice was
surprisingly soft, with a suggestion of a stutter. Maegwin
had only heard him once before—Skali had shouted up at
the Hemystiri's hiding place on the mountain side, trumpet-
ing the gift of her brother Gwythinn's mutilated body—but
that one horrid time was enough: shouting or whispering,
Maegwin knew that voice and loathed it. The nose that had
given Skali his nickname stood out starkly from a broad,
wind-bumed face. His eyes were intent and clever. She did
not see a hint of any sort of kindness in their depths, but
she had not expected to.

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER                          4&I

Face-to-face at last with the destroyer of her family,
she was pleased by her own icy calm. "I am Maegwin,"
she proclaimed. "Daughter of Lluth-ubh-Llythinn, the
king of Hemystir."

"Who is dead," Skali said shortly.

"Whom you killed. I have come to tell you that your
time is over. You are to leave this land now, before the
gods of Hemystir punish you."

Skali stared at her carefully. His guardsmen were
smirking at the ridiculousness of the situation, but Sharp-
nose was not. "And if I do not, king's daughter?"

"The gods will decide your fate." She spoke serenely
despite the hatred boiling within her. "It will not be a
kind one."

Skali looked at her a moment longer, then gestured to
some of his guardsmen. "Pen them. If they resist, kill the
men first." The guards, laughing openly now, moved to
surround Maegwufs people. One of the children began to
cry, then more joined in.

As the guards began to lay rough hands on her folk,
Maegwin felt her confidence waver. What was happen-
ing? When would the gods make things right? She looked
around, expecting deadly lightnings to leap from the
skies, or the ground to heave and swallow the defilers,
but nothing happened. She sought frantically for Diawen.
The scryer's eyes were closed in rapt concentration, her
lips soundlessly moving.

"No! Do not touch them!" Maegwin cried as the
guardsmen prodded with their spears at some of the cry-
ing children, trying to round them back into line with the
others. "You must quit this land!" she shouted with all the
authority she could summon. "It is the will of the gods!"

But the Rimmersmen paid no attention. Maegwin's
heart was racing as though it would burst. What was hap-
pening? Why had the gods betrayed her? Could this have
all been some incomprehensible trick?

"Brynioch!" she cried. "Murhagh One-Arm! Where are
you!?"

The skies did not answer.

482

Tad Williams

^

The light of early dawn was filtering through the tree-
tops, shimmering faintly on the crumbling stones. The
company of fifty mounted knights and twice that many
foot-soldiers passed yet another ruined wall, a precarious
stack of eroded, snow-dusted blocks glazed with brilliant
rose and shining lavender which seemed more alive than
any mere stones should. They rode by in silence, then be-
gan to wind down the hillside toward the icy lake, an ex-
panse of white streaked with blue and gray hanging
behind the outermost trees like a painter's catch-cloth.

Helfgrim, the Lord Mayor, craned his head to look
back at the ruins, although it was no little strain to do so
with his hands tied to the pommel of a saddle.
"So that is it," he said softly. "The fairy city."
"I may need you to lead me to the path," Fengbald
snapped, "but that doesn't mean I can't break your arm.
I will hear no more about any 'fairy cities.'"

Helfgrim turned, a hint of a smile curling his puckered
mouth. "It is a shame to pass so near such a thing and not
look, Duke Fengbald."

"Look all you want. Just keep your mouth shut." And
he glared at the mounted soldiers, as if daring any of
them to share Helfgrim's interest.

When they reached the shore of the frozen lake,
Pengbald looked up, smoothing his unbound black hair
away from his face. "Ah- The clouds are gathering.
Good." He turned to Helfgrim. "It would be best of all to
have done this in darkness, but I am not such a fool as to
trust an old dotard to find his way by night. Besides,
Lezhdraka and the rest should be making enough of a
ruckus on the far side of the hill by now to keep Josua

nicely occupied."

"I'm sure." Helfgrim gave the duke a wary glance.
"My lord, could we at least have my daughters to ride

here beside me?"

Fengbald stared at him suspiciously. "Why?"
The old man paused a moment. "It is hard for me to

say it, my lord. I trust your word, please don't believe I

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER           483

don't. But I fear that your men—well, if they're out of
your sight. Duke Fengbald, they might perform some
mischief."

The duke laughed. "Surely you do not fear for the vir-
tue of your daughters, old fellow? Unless I miss my
guess, their maiden days are far behind them."

Helfgrim could not conceal a flinch. "Even so, my
lord, it would be a kindness to put a father's heart at
ease."

Fengbald considered for a moment, then whistled for
his page. "Isaak, tell the guardsmen who carry the women
to come ride nearer to me. Not that any should complain
at being asked to ride beside their liege-lord," he added
for the old man's benefit.

Young Isaak, who seemed to wish that he himself had
the option of riding anything at all, bowed and went
sloshing back up the muddy trail.

A few moments later the guardsmen appeared.
Helfgrim's two daughters were not bound, but each one
sat in the saddle before an armored man, so that they
looked not unlike Hyrka brides—who, it was reputed in
the cities, were frequently stolen in midnight raids and
unceremoniously carried away, "draped across their cap-
tor's saddles like sacks of meal.

"Are you well, daughters?" Helfgrim asked. The youn-
ger of the two, who had been crying, wiped her eyes with
the hem of her cloak and tried to smile bravely.

"We are quite well. Father."

"That is good. No tears, then, my little coney. Be tike
your sister. There is nothing to fear—you know that Duke
Fengbald is a man of his word."

"Yes, Father."

The duke smiled beneficently. He knew what sort of
man he was, but it was good to see that the common folk
knew it, too.

The wind blew harder as the first horses stepped out
onto the ice. Fengbald cursed as his mount misstepped
and had to splay its legs to stay afoot. "Even had I no
other reasons," he hissed, "I would kill Josua just for
bringing me to this godforsaken spot."

484

Tad Williams

"Men must run far to elude your long arm. Duke
Fengbald," said Helfgrim.

"There is no place that far."

Snow came flurrying around the great hill's northern
flank, moving almost horizontally in the strong wind.
Fengbald squinted and pulled up his hood. "Are we al-
most there?"

Helfgrim squinted, too, then nodded and pointed to a
blot of deeper shadow ahead. "There is the foot of the
hill. Lord." He continued to stare into the darting snow.

Fengbald smiled. "You look very glum," he called over
the noise of the wind. "Can it be that you still do not trust
my word?"

Helfgrim looked down at his bound wrists and pursed
his lips before speaking. "No, Duke Fengbald, but surely
I must feel some grief that I am betraying folk who were
kind to me."

The duke waved his hand at the nearest riders. 'To
save your daughters—a noble enough reason. Besides,
Josua was doomed to lose in any case. You are no more
to blame for his fall than the worm that devours the
corpse is to blame for Death's reaping." He grinned,
pleased with his turn of phrase- "No more to blame than
a worm, do you see?"

Helfgrim looked up. His wrinkled skin, speckled by
snow, seemed gray. "Perhaps you are right. Duke
Fengbald."

The hill now loomed overhead like a finger raised in
warning. The company was only a few hundred ells from
the edge of the ice when Helfgrim pointed again.

"There is me path. Duke Fengbald."

It was a tiny break in the vegetation, barely visible
even from their near vantage point. Still, Fengbald could
see enough to be satisfied that Helfgrim told the truth.

"Now, then ..." the duke said, when suddenly a voice
came rolling down from the mountainside.

"Stop, Fengbald! You may not pass!"

The duke pulled up, startled. A small group of shadowy
figures had appeared at the lip of the path. One of them
raised his hands to cup his mouth- "Go back,

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER           485

Fengbald—go away and leave this place. Ride away back
to Erkynland and we will let you live."

The duke turned suddenly and slapped Helfgrim on the
side of the head. The old man swayed and almost fell, but
his bound wrists held him in the saddle. "Traitor! You
said there would be only a few guards!"

Helfgrim's face sagged in fear. Fengbald's mark
showed red on his pale cheek. "I did not lie, my lord!
Look, they are a few only."

Fengbald waved for his troops to hold their position,
then rode a little distance forward, staring. "I see only a
handful of you," he shouted up at the men on the path.
"How will you stop me?"

The man nearest the edge stepped forward. "We will,
Fengbald. We will give our lives and more to stop you."

"Very well." The duke had evidently decided it was a
bluff after all. "Then I will let you hurry and give them."
He raised his arm to order his troops forward.

"Stop!" the figure called- "I will give you one last
chance, damn you! You don't recognize my face I know,
but how about my name? I am Freosel, Freobeom's son."

"What do I care, you madman?" Fengbald shouted.
"You are nothing to me!"

"Nor were my wife and children, my father and
mother, nor any of the others you murdered!" The stocky
figure had stepped out onto the ice with the rest of his
companions. They were less than a dozen all told- "You
burned half of Falshire, you great whoreson bastard! Now
the time has come for you to pay!"

"Enough!" Fengbald turned to wave his men forward.
"Up now and clean the madmen out- It is a rat's nest!"

Freosel and his companions bent and lifted what at first
seemed like axes, or swords, or some other weapons with
which to defend themselves. A moment later, as his men
began to guide their slipping mounts past him, Fengbald
saw to his astonishment that the hill's defenders were
swinging heavy mallets. Freosel brought his own down
first, smashing it onto the ice as though in idiot frustra-
tion. His companions on either side strode forward and
joined him.

486 Tad Williams

"What are they doing!?" Fengbald bellowed. The fur-
thermost of his soldiers were still a hundred ells from the
shore. "Have all of Josua's people gone starvation-mad?"

"They are killing you," a calm voice said beside him.

The duke whirled to see Helfgrim, still lashed to the
saddle of his horse. His daughters and their guards were
close by, the soldiers looking both excited and confused.

"What are you babbling about?" Fengbald snarled, lift-
ing his sword as if to swipe off the old man's head. Be-
fore he could move a pace closer, there was a horrible,
deafening crack, like the splitting of a giant's bones. A
moment later it sounded again. Somewhere at the fore-
most edge of Fengbald's company there was a sudden
roar of men's voices and, even more chillingly, the almost
human screaming of terrified horses.

"What is happening?" the duke demanded, straining to
see past the crush of mounted men.

"They prepared the ice for you, Fengbald. I helped
them plan it. You see, we are of Falshire, too." Helfgrim
spoke just loudly enough to be heard above the wind.
"My brother was its Lord Mayor, as you would have
known instantly if you had ever bothered to come there
except to steal our bread, our gold, even our young
women for your bed. Surely you did not think we would
stand by and let you also destroy the few of our people
who had escaped your brutality?"

There was another jarring crack, and suddenly, just
yards away from the Lord Mayor and the duke, a crevice
foamed with black water where there had been ice a mo-
ment before. More ice crumbled along the opening and
sheared loose; a pair of horsemen toppled in, flailing for
an instant until they were sucked down into darkness.

"But you will die, too, damn you!" Fengbald shouted,
urging his horse toward the old man.

"Of course I will. It is enough that my daughters and I
avenge the others—their souls will welcome us." And
then Helfgrim smiled, a cold smile without a scintilla of
mirth.

Fengbald suddenly found himself flung sideways as the
white surface erupted beneath him, snapping upward like

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER                           487

dragon's jaws. A moment later the duke's horse was gone
and he was clutching a jagged-edged sheet of ice which
rocked precariously. His boots and breeches were already
submerged in freezing water. "Help me!" he shrieked.

Eerily, Helfgrim and his daughters were still upright,
seated on their frantic horses just cubits away. Their
guards were scrambling away across the remaining sheet
of unbroken ice, struggling toward the shelter of the
standing stone. "Too late," the old man cried. The two
women stared down at the duke, eyes wide as they strug-
gled to contain their terror. 'Too late for you, Fengbald,"
Helfgrim repeated. A moment later, with a sudden grind-
ing crunch, the entire section on which the trio and their
mounts stood broke and collapsed into the choppy black
waters. The Lord Mayor and his daughters vanished like
ghosts chased by the dawn-knell.

"Help!" Fengbald screamed- His fingers were slipping.
As he slid, the piece of ice to which he clung began to
tilt, the far end reaching for the gray sky even as his own
end plunged inexorably downward- Fengbald's eyes
bulged. "No! I can't die! I can't!"

The ragged pane of ice, almost vertical now, over-
balanced and abruptly flipped over. The duke's gloved
hand snatched briefly at the air, then was gone.

«

The sun was in Maegwin's eyes. Doubt dug into her
heart, sending black rays of pain through all her limbs.
Around her, Skali's Rimmersmen were rounding up her
people, prodding them at spear-point, herding them as
though they were beasts.

"Gods of our people!" Her voice tore in her throat.
"Save us! You promisedF

Skali Sharp-nose approached, laughing, his hands
tucked into his belt, "Your gods are dead, girl. Like your
father. Like your kingdom. But I may find a use for you
yet." Maegwin could smell the stink of him, like the
tangy, rotten scent of over-aged venison. "You are plain,

488 Tad Williams

haja, but your legs are long ... and I like long legs. Bet-
ter than being a whore to my men, eh?"

Maegwin stepped back, raising her arms as though to
ward a blow. Before she could say anything, the air was
ripped by the sound of a distant horn. Skali and some of
his men turned, surprised. The horn sounded again, louder
now, clear and shrill and powerful. It played a cascade of
notes that echoed around the Taig and out over the fields
of Hemysadharc- Maegwin stared.

It was only a gleam at first, a rippling shimmer out of
the east. The hooves made a rushing sound, like a river
after strong rains. Skali's men began to scramble for the
helmets they had tossed aside when they had discovered
the nature of Maegwin's company of partisans; Skali him-
self began screaming for his horse.

It was an army, Maegwin realized—no, it was a dream,
a dream made flesh and unleashed upon the snowy mead-
ows. They were coming at last!

The hom echoed again. The riders were thundering to-
ward Hemysadharc, impossibly swift. Their armor shone
in every color the rainbow had—sky-blue, ruby-crimson,
leaf-green, the orange and vermilion of sunset fog- She
could hear them singing now as they rode, a high, bril-
liant keening like a flock of impossibly musical birds.
They could have been a hundred riders or ten thousand:      ^',
Maegwin could not even try to guess, for in the beautiful      ^
terror of their coming it was almost impossible to stare at       ^
them too long. They streamed with color and noise and      ^
light, as though the world had been torn open and the raw      H
stuff of dream allowed to spill through.                      H

Again the hom sounded. Maegwin, suddenly all alone,      ||
stumbled toward the Taig, not even conscious at that mo-      ^
ment that this was the first time she had touched its      f],
wooden walls since Skali had put her people to flight.      %-
The Rimmersmen, dismayed, were gathering on the hill-      ^
side below her father's great hall, milling and shouting as      it
they struggled to make their horses face mis incompre"      ^
hensible enemy. The horns of the oncoming army     i f'.'-
sounded again.                                            ^

The gods have come! Maegwin turned in the doorway      ^

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER            4&9

to watch. The culmination of all her agonies and hope
was here at last, burning across the snowy fields to rescue
her people. The gods! The gods! She had brought the
gods!

There was a clatter from within the Taig. More of
Skali's men came streaming forth, pulling on helmets,
fumbling with sword belts. One of them pushed into
Maegwin and sent her spinning into the path of another,
who raised his mailed fist and brought it crashing against
her head.

Maegwin's world abruptly vanished.

«

It was Binabik who found Simon at last, with Sisqi
helping him search—or rather it was Qantaqa, whose nose
could discern the proper scent even in the madness that
surrounded Sesuad'ra. They found him sitting cross-
legged on the ice beside a motionless figure wearing
Fengbald's armor. Homefinder stood over him, shivering
in the terrible wind, her muzzle near Simon's ear.
Qantaqa pawed at the young man's leg and made a soft
sound as she waited for her master.

"Simon!" Binabik scrambled toward him across the
rough surface of the lake. There were bodies scattered all
about, but the troll did not stop to look at any of them.
"Are you injured?"

Simon lifted his head slowly. His throat was so rough
that his voice was barely a whisper. "Binabik? What hap-
pened?"

"Are you safe, Simon?" The little man bent to examine
his friend, then straightened. "You have many wounds.
We must get you back."

"What happened?" Simon asked again. Binabik was
pulling at his shoulders, trying to help him stand, but Si-
mon could not seem to gather the strength. Sisqi ap-
proached and stood nearby, waiting to see if Binabik
would need her help.

"We have won," said Binabik. "The price we have
been paying is great, but Fengbald is dead."

490

Tad Williams

"No." A look of concern flitted across Simon's haggard
face. "It wasn't him. It was someone else."

Binabik darted a look at the figure lying nearby. "I
know, Simon. It is elsewhere that Fengbald is being
dead—a horrible death, and for many others than him
only. But come. You are needing a fire, and food, and
some attending to your wounds."

Simon let out a deep groan as he let the little man urge
him to his feet, a hollow noise that drew another worried
look from Binabik. Simon limped a few steps, then
stopped and caught at Homefmder's reins. "I can't get
into the saddle," he murmured sadly.

"Walk, then, if you can," Binabik said. "With slow-
ness. Sisqi and I will be walking with you."

With Qantaqa in the lead once more, they turned and
trudged toward the Stone, whose summit was painted
with rosy light from the dying sun. Thickening mist hung
over the icy lake, and all around the ravens hopped and
scuttled from body to body like tiny black demons.

"Oh, God," Simon said. "I want to go home."

Binabik only shook his head.

16

Torches m tfte Mud

^StOp," Cadrach's voice was nearly a whisper, but the
straining tone was evident. "Stop now."

Isgrimnur pushed the pole down until it touched the
muddy bottom of the watercourse, arresting their prog-
ress. The boat floated gently back into the reeds once
more. "What is it, man?" he said irritably. "We have gone
over everything a dozen times. Now it's time to move."

In the bow of the boat, ancient Camaris fingered a long
spear Isgrimnur had made from a stiff swamp reed. It was
thin and light, and the point had been scraped against a
stone until it was sharp as air assassin's dirk. The old
knight, as usual, seemed oblivious to the conversation of
his fellows. He hefted the spear and made a slow, mock
stab, slipping the point into the still water.

Cadrach took a deep, shaky breath. Miriamele thought
he looked as though he were on the brink of tears. "I can-
not go."

"Cafinot?" Isgrimnur almost shouted- "What do you
mean, cannot? It was your idea we wait for morning be-
fore going into the nest! What are you talking about
now!?"

The monk shook his head, unable to meet the duke's
eyes- "I tried to nerve myself all night. I have been saying
prayers all the morning—me!" He turned to Miriamele
with a look of bleak irony. "Me! But I still cannot do it.
I am a coward, and I cannot go into ... that place."

Miriamele reached out a hand and touched his shoul-
der. "Even to save Tiamak?" She let the hand rest gently,

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as though the monk had turned to fragile glass. "And as
you said, even to save ourselves? For without Tiamak, we
may never get out of this place at all."

Cadrach buried his face in his hands. Midamele felt a
hint of her old distrust come sneaking back. Could the
monk be play-acting? What else could he have in mind?

"God forgive me. Lady," he moaned, "but I simply
cannot go down into that hole with those creatures. I can-
not." He shuddered, a convulsive movement so uncon-
trolled that Miriamele doubted it could be trickery. "I
have given over my right to be called a man long ago,"
Cadrach said through his splayed fingers. "I do not even
care for my life, believe me. But—I—cannot—go."

Isgrimnur grumbled his frustration. "Well, damn you,
that is the end. I should have broken your skull when we
met, as I wanted to." The duke turned to Miriamele. "I
should never have let you talk me out of it." He shifted
his scornful gaze back to Cadrach. "A kidnapper, a
drunkard, and a coward."

"Yes, you probably should have killed me when you
first had the chance," Cadrach agreed tonelessly. "But I
promise you would still be better off doing it now than
dragging me down into that mud nest. I will not go in

there."

"But why, Cadrach?" Miriamele asked. "Why won't

you?"

He looked at her. His sunken eyes and sun-reddened
face seemed to plead for understanding, but his grim
smile suggested he expected none. "I simply cannot,
Lady. It ... it reminds me of a place I was in before."
Again he shuddered.

"What place?" she prodded, but Cadrach would not an-
swer.

"Aedon on the Holy Tree," Isgrimnur swore. "So what

do we do now?"

Miriamele stared at the waving reeds, which at this mo-
ment hid them from the sight of the ghant nest a few hun-
dred ells up the waterway. The muddy bank nearby had a
low-tide smell. She wrinkled her nose and sighed. What
could they do, indeed?

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493

,t.

They had not even been able to make a plan until late
the afternoon before. There was a strong chance that
Tiamak was already dead, which made any decision more
difficult. Although no one had wanted to say it directly,
there was some sentiment that the best thing to do would
be to go on, hoping that the Wrannaman they had found
floating in Tiamak's boat might recover enough to guide
them. Failing that, they might discover another swamp
native who would help them find their way out of the
Wran. No one had been comfortable with the idea of
abandoning Tiamak, although it seemed by far the least
risky course, but it was dreadful to think about what it
would take to find out if he still lived, and to save him if
he did.

Still, when Isgrimnur at last said that leaving Tiamak
would not be the Aedonite thing to do, Miriamele had
been relieved. She had not wanted to run away without at
least trying to save the Wrannaman, however terrifying
the idea of entering that nest. And, she reminded herself,
she had faced at least as bad in the past months. In any
case, how could she live with herself if she made it to
safety and had to remember the shy little scholar left to
those clicking monstrosities?

Cadrach—even then he had seemed more frightened of
the nest than the rest of them—had argued strenuously for
waiting until morning. His reasons had seemed good:

there was little sense in trying such a foolhardy thing
without a battle plan, and even less sense starting when it
would soon be dark. As it was, Cadrach had said, they
would need not just weapons but torches, because even
though the nest seemed to have holes that let in the light,
who knew what dark passages might run through the
heart of the thing? So it had been agreed.

They found a rattling grove of heavy green reeds along
the edge of the watercourse and made camp near it. The
site was muddy and wet, but it was also a good distance
from the nest, which was recommendation enough.
Isgrimnur took his sword Kvalnir and cut a great bundle
of the reeds, then he and Cadrach hardened them over the

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embers of the campfire. Some of the stalks they had cut
and sharpened to make short stabbing spears; they split
the ends of others and forced stones between the halves,
then tied the stones in place with thin vines to make
clubs. Isgrimnur lamented the lack of good wood and
rope, but Miriamele admired the job. It was much more
reassuring to go into the nest with even such primitive
arms than to walk in empty-handed. Lastly, they sacri-
ficed some of the clothes Miriamele had brought out of
Village Grove, shredding them for rags which they wound
tightly around the remaining reeds. Miriamele crushed
one of the leaves of a tree which Tiamak had named as an
oil palm during his botanical tour a few days before, then
dabbed a rag in it and held the cloth to the campfire. It
held a flame, she discovered, although nothing like true
lamp oil; the scent of its burning was acrid and foul. Still,
it would keep the torches blazing a little while longer, and
she had a feeling that they would need all the time they
could buy. She plucked an armful of fronds and rubbed
crushed pulp on the torch rags until her hands were so
coated with sap that her fingers stuck together.

When the night sky had at last begun to lighten, just
before dawn, Isgrimnur had awakened the company. They
had decided to leave the wounded Wrannaman in camp:

there was little sense in bringing him into further danger,
since he seemed already to be exhausted and starved
nearly to death. If they survived their attempt to rescue
Tiamak, they could always come back for him; if they did
not, at least he would have a small chance to survive and
make his own escape.

Isgrimnur lifted his pole to the surface of the water and
swished off the mud that clung to the end. "So, then?
What do we do? The monk is worthless."

"There may still be a way he can help." Miriamele
looked meaningfully at Cadrach. He kept his face averted.
"In any case, we can certainly go on with the first part of
what we planned, can't'we?"

"I suppose." Isgrimnur stared at the Hemystirman as
though he would have liked to test one of the reed clubs

TO  GREEN   ANGEL  TOWER

495

on him. He thrust the pole into the monk's hands. "Let's
get to it. You can damn well make yourself useful,"

Cadrach poled the boat out of the waving forest of
reeds and onto the wide part of the watercourse. The
morning sun was not very bright today, hidden behind a
smudgy sheet of clouds, but the air was even hotter than
it had been the day before. Miriamele felt a sheen of
sweat on her forehead and wished that she dared to flout
the crocodiles by taking off her boots and dangling her
feet in the murky water.

They slipped along the waterway until they finally
came into view of their objective, then moved close to the
bank and slowly and cautiously up the canal, trying to use
the cover of reeds and trees to stay out of direct sight.
The nest looked just as sinister as it had the day before,
although there seemed to be fewer ghants scuttling about
outside. When they had gotten as close as they dared,
Isgrimnur let the boat drift toward the outer edge of the
waterway until a tree-lined bend in its course blocked
them completely from view of the nest.

"Now we wait," he said quietly.

They sat in silence for no little time. The insects were
a misery. Miriamele, afraid to slap at them because of the
noise, tried to pick them off with her fingers as they
landed, but they were too numerous and too persistent:

she was bitten many times. Her skin itched and throbbed
so completely that she felt she would go mad, and the
idea of leaping into the river and drowning all the bugs at
once grew stronger and stronger, until it seemed that any
moment she would be able to hold it off no longer. Her
fingers clutched the wales of the boat. It would be cool.
It would stop the stinging. Let the crocodiles come, damn
them....

"There," Isgrimnur whispered. Miriamele looked up.

Not twenty cubits from where they sat, a lone ghant
was coming down a long tree branch that snaked out over
the water. Because of its jointed legs, its movements
seemed strangely awkward, but it traveled swiftly and
confidently on the thin, swaying branch. From time to
time it would stop suddenly, becoming so utterly motion-

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less that, gray and lichen-streaked as it was, it seemed
part of the bark, just a particularly large tree gall.

"Push," Isgrimnur mouthed, gesturing at Cadrach. The
monk prodded the boat away from the bank and sent it
idling down the watercourse toward the branch.
Miriamele and all the company remained as still as they

could.

The ghant did not seem to notice them at first. As they
drew closer, it continued to creep out along the bough,
moving patiently toward a trio of small birds that had lit
at the end. Like the thing that hunted them, the birds
seemed oblivious to the presence of danger.

Isgrimnur replaced Camaris in the prow of the boat,
then leaned forward, steadying himself as well as he
could. The ghant finally seemed to see the boat floating
toward it; black eyes glittered as it swayed in place, try-
ing to decide whether the approaching object was a men-
ace or a potential meal. As Isgrimnur raised the reed
spear, the ghant seemed to come to a conclusion: it turned
and began to shinny back toward the tree trunk.

"Now, Isgrimnur!" cried Miriamele. The Rimmersman
flung the spear as hard as he could; the boat rocked
treacherously with the force of his throw. The birds lifted
from the branch, squawking and flapping. The spear
hissed through the air, a length of Tiamak's precious rope
falling away behind it, and struck the ghant but did not
pierce its shell; the spear bounced away and fell to the
water, but the force of the blow was enough to knock the
animal from the bough. It splashed into the green water
and surfaced a moment later with legs flexing wildly, then
righted itself and began a strange, jerky swim toward the

bank.

Cadrach swiftly poled the boat forward until they were

beside the creature. Isgrimnur leaned low and struck it
hard twice with the flat of his sword. When it floated
back up, clearly beyond struggling, he looped a bit of
Tiamak's rope around one clawed leg so they could tow

it back to shore.

"Don't want to put the thing in the boat," he said.

Miriamele could not have agreed more.

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497

The ghant seemed dead—the carapace of its lumpish
head was cracked, oozing gray and blue fluids—but no
one stood too near as they used the steering pole to turn
it onto its back on the sandy bank. Camaris remained in
the boat, although he seemed to be watching as curiously
as the rest of the company.

Isgrimnur scowled- "God help us. They are ugly bas-
tards, aren't they?"

"Your spear couldn't kill it." Miriamele's feelings
about their chances had sunk even lower.

Isgrimnur waved his hand reassuringly. "Got thick ar-
mor, these things. Have to make the spears a little heav-
ier. A stone spliced in the end should do it. Don't worry
yourself more than you need. Princess. We'll be able to
do what we need to."

Strangely, she believed him and felt better. Isgrimnur
had always treated her like a favorite niece, even when
his relations with her father had become strained, and she
in turn treated him with the loving, mocking familiarity
she had never been able to use on Elias. She knew he
would do his best to keep them all safe—and the Duke of
Elvritshalla's best was usually very good. Although he al-
lowed his comrades and even hts house-carls to make fun
of his fierce but short-lived temper and his underlying
softheartedness, the duke was a tremendously capable
man. Miriamele was again grateful that Isgrimnur was
with her.

"I hope you're right." She reached out and squeezed
his broad paw.

They all stared at the dead ghant. Miriamele could now
see that it did have six legs, just like a beetle, not four as
she had thought. The two she had missed on her first
ghant were tiny, withered things tucked just below the
place where the neckless head met the rounded body. The
thing's mouth was half-hidden behind an odd featherlike
fringe and its shell was dull and leathery as a sea-turtle's

egg-
Turn away. Princess," Isgrimnur said as he lifted
Kvalnir. "You won't want to see this."

Miriamele suppressed a smile. What did he think she

498 Tad Williams

had been doing the last half year? "Go ahead. I'm not
squeamish."

The duke lowered his sword and placed it against the
creature's abdomen, then pushed. The ghant slid across
the mud a little way. Isgrimnur grunted, then held the car-
cass steady with his foot before pushing again. This time,
after a moment of effort, he was able to push the blade
through the shell, which gave with a faint popping noise.
A salty, sour smell wafted up and Miriamele took a step
back.

"The shells are tough," Isgrimnur said thoughtfully,
"but they can be pierced." He tried to smile. "I was wor-
ried that we might have to besiege a castle of armored
soldiers."

Cadrach had gone quite pale, but continued to stare at
the ghant, fascinated. "It is disturbingly manlike, as
Tiamak said," he murmured. "But I will not be too sorry
about this one or any others we kill."

"We kill?" Isgrimnur began angrily, but Miriamele gave
him another hand-squeeze.

"What else can mis tell us?" she asked.

"I don't see any poison stingers or teeth, so I suppose
they don't bite like spiders do—that's a relief." The duke
shrugged. "They can be killed. Their shells are not as
hard as tortoise shells. That is enough, I think."

"Then I suppose it's time to go," Miriamele said.

Cadrach poled the flatboat in to the bank. They were
only a few hundred steps from the edge of the nest now.
So far, they seemed to be unnoticed.

"But what about the boat?" Isgrimnur whispered. "Can
we leave it so we can get back to it in a hurry?" His ex-
pression soured. "And what about this damnable monk?"

"That's my idea," Miriamele whispered back.
"Cadrach, if you keep the boat in the middle of the water-
way until we come out, you can land right at the front of
the nest and get us. We'll probably be in a hurry," she
added wryly.

"What!?" Isgrimnur struggled to keep his voice soft,
with only partial success. "You're going to leave this

TO  GREEN   ANGEL  TOWER

499

coward in our boat, free to paddle away if he wants to?
Free to strand us here? No, by the Aedon, we will take
him with us—bound and gagged if need be."

Cadrach clutched the steering pole, his knuckles white.
"You might as well kill me first," he said hoarsely, "Be-
cause I will die if you drag me in there."

"Stop it, Isgrimnur. He may not be able to go into the
nest, but he would never leave us here. Not after all he
and I have been through." She turned and gave the monk
a purposeful glance. "Would you, Cadrach?"

He looked at her carefully, as though he suspected a
trick. A moment passed before he spoke. "No, my lady, I
would not—whatever Duke Isgrimnur thinks."

"And why should I let you make such a decision. Prin-
cess?" Isgrimnur was angry. "Whatever you think you
know of this man, you also said yourself that he stole
from you and sold you out to your enemies."

Miriamele frowned. It was true, of course—and she
had not told Isgrimnur everything. She had never men-
tioned Cadrach's attempt to escape and leave her behind
on Aspitis' ship, which would certainly not argue in his
favor. She found herself wondering why she was so cer-
tain that Cadrach could be trusted to wait for them, but it
was no use: there was no answer. She just believed that
he would be there when they got out ... if they got out.

"We really have very little choice," she told the duke.
"Unless we force him to go along—and it will be hard
enough to find our way and do what we must without also
dragging a prisoner with us—we would have to tie him
up somewhere to prevent him taking the boat if he wanted
to. Don't you see, Isgrimnur, it's just the best way! If we
leave the boat untended, even if we try to hide it from the
ghants ... well, who knows what could happen?"

Isgrimnur pondered for a long moment, his bearded
jaws working as though he chewed on the various possi-
bilities. "So," he said at last. "I suppose that is true. Very
well—but if you are not there when we need you," he
whirled on Cadrach menacingly, "I will find you some
day and crush your bones. I will eat you like a game
hen."

500 Tad Williams

Cadrach smiled sadly. "I'm sure you would. Duke
Isgrimnur." The monk turned to Miriamele. "Thank you
for trusting me, my lady. It is not easy to be a man like
myself."

"I should hope not," Isgrimnur growled. "Otherwise
there'd be more of you."

"I think it will all be well, Cadrach," said Miriamele.
"But pray for us."

"Every god I know."

The duke, still muttering angrily, struck a spark with
his flint and lit one of the torches. The rest he and
Miriamele stuck in their belts until they were both spined
like hedgehogs- Miriamele carried a club and one of the
weighted spears, as did Camaris, who handled his weap-
ons distractedly while the other two prepared. Isgrimnur
had Kvalnir sheathed on his belt, and a pair of short
spears clutched in his free hand.

"Going into battle armed with sticks," he growled.
"Going to fight bugs."

"It will make a wretched song," Miriamele whispered-
"Or a glorious one, perhaps. We'll see." She turned to the
old man. "Sir Camaris, we're going to help Tiamak. Your
friend—do you remember? He's in there." She pointed
with her spear at the dark bulk of the nest looming behind
the trees. "We have to find him and bring him out." She
stared at his unexcited expression. "Do you think he un-
derstands, Isgrimnur?"

"He has become simple ... but not as simple as he
seems, I think." The duke grabbed at a low branch and
helped himself over the side of the boat and into the shin-
deep water. "Here, Princess, let me help you." He lifted
her and set her on the bank. "Josua will never forgive me
if anything happens to you. I still think it is foolish to
bring you along—especially when that one is staying be-
hind, cozy and safe."

"You need me," she said. "It will be difficult enough
with three."

Isgrimnur shook his head, unconvinced. "Just stay near
me."

"I will, old uncle."

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

501

As Camaris sloshed to shore, Cadrach began to push
the boat out into deeper water.

"Hold," said Isgrimnur. "Wait until we are inside at
least. We don't need to attract their attention until we're
ready."

Cadrach nodded and used the pole to stop the boat.
"Bless you all," he said softly. "Good luck to you."
The duke snorted and moved away into undergrowth,
boots squelching in the mud. Miriamele nodded to
Cadrach, then took Camaris' hand and led him after the
duke.

"Good luck," Cadrach said again. He spoke in a whis-
per, and none of the others seemed to hear him.

"See!" Miriamele hissed. "There's one that's big
enough!"

A soft humming filled the air. They were very close to
the nest, so close that had Miriamele dared to stretch her
hand out from where they hid in a tangle of flowering
brush, she could almost have touched it. Upon approach-
ing the huge mud structure, they had quickly realized that
many of the doors—mere holes in the walls, actually—
were far too small for even the'princess to enter, let alone
broad Isgrimnur.

"Right," said the duke. "Let's get to it, then." He
started to reach for his torch, then stopped and waved for
his companions to do the same. A few cubits away, a pair
of ghants came creeping along the perimeter of the nest.
Although they walked in file, one behind the other, they
were clicking and hissing back and forth as though they
conversed. Again Miriamele wondered how smart the
things were. The ghants walked past on all fours, jointed
legs ticking as they went. The trio watched them until
they were gone around the curve of the huge nest.

- "Now." Isgrimnur plucked his torch out of the mud; he
had set it behind him so that his broad frame masked its
light. Even in the morning sun, its flame made Miriamele
feel a little safer.

After looking cautiously in all directions, the duke
crossed the short distance to the nest and leaned into the

502 Tad Williams

ragged opening. He stepped through, then reached back to
beckon to Miriamele and Camaris.

Increasingly reluctant as the actual moment ap-
proached, Miriamele hesitated before following the duke
inside, taking a deep breath as if to dive into water. She
understood Cadrach's decision better than she did her
own. The place would be full of those crawling, clicking,
many-legged things. . . . Her knees grew weak. How
could she walk into that black hole? But Tiamak was al-
ready there, alone with the ghants. He might be screaming
for help down in the darkness.

Miriamele swallowed, then stepped into the nest.

She found herself in a circular passageway as wide as
her outstretched arms and only a little taller than her own
height. Isgrimnur had to hunch down, and Camaris, who
followed Miriamele, had to bend even lower. The mud
walls were spiky with loose stones and bits of splintered
sticks, all covered with pale froth that looked like spittle.
The tunnel was dark and steamily humid and smelled of
rotting vegetation.

"Ugh." Miriamele wrinkled her nose. Her heart was
pounding. "I don't like this at all."

"I know," Isgrimnur whispered. "It's foul. Come on,
let's see what we can see."

They followed the winding passageway, struggling for
footing on the slippery mud. Isgrimnur and Camaris had
to lean forward, which made balancing even more diffi-
cult. Miriamele felt her courage beginning to fail. Why
had she been so anxious to prove herself? This was no
place for a girl. This was no place for anyone.

"I think Cadrach was right." She tried to keep the qua-
ver out of her voice.

"No sensible person would want to come in here," the
duke said quietly, "but that's not the question. Besides, if
this is as bad as it gets, I'll be happy. I'm afraid we might
find ourselves in a smaller tunnel and have to go on our
knees."

Miriamele thought of being chased by the scuttling
ghants but not being able to run. She stared at the slickly
glistening tunnel floor and shuddered.

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503

The light from the entrance began to dim as they put
several bends of the tunnel behind them. The rotten smell
grew stronger, accompanied now by a strange spicy odor,
musty and cloyingly sweet. Miriamele slipped her club
into her belt and lit one of her brands from Isgrimnur's,
then lit another and gave it to Camaris, who took it as
placidly as an infant handed a crust of bread. Miriamele
envied his idiot calm. "Where are the ghants?" she whis-
pered.

"Don't look for trouble." Isgrimnur made the Tree sign
in the air with his torch before moving on.

The uneven passage turned and turned again, as though
they clambered through the guts of some vast animal. Af-
ter a few more squishing steps, they reached a point
where a new tunnel crossed theirs. Isgrimnur stood and
listened for a moment.

"I think I hear more noise from this one," The duke
pointed down one of the side branches. Indeed, the dull
humming did seem stronger there.

"But should we go toward it or away from it?"
Miriamele tried to wave the choking torch smoke away
from her face.

Isgrimnur's expression was fatalistic. "I think that
Tiamak or any other prisoners would be at the heart of the
thing. I say, follow the noise. Not that I like it," he added.
He reached up and scraped a circle in the froth with one
of his reed spears, exposing the muddy wall beneath- "We
have to remember to mark our way."

The froth on the walls was thicker in the new passage;

in places it hung from the tunnel roof in viscous, ropy
strands. Miriamele did her best to avoid touching the
stuff, but there was no way to avoid breathing. She could
almost feel the damp, unpleasant air of the tunnels con-
gealing inside her chest. Still, Miriamele told herself, she
had no real cause for complaint: they had been in the nest
for no little time, and still had not met any of the inhab-
itants. That alone was an incredible piece of luck.

"This place doesn't look nearly so big from outside,"
she said to Isgrimnur.

"We never saw the back of it, for one thing." He

504 Tad Williams

stepped carefully over a glob of pale muck in the pas-
sageway. "And I think that these tunnels may be looping
back on themselves. I'd wager that if you broke through
this ..." he prodded at the wall with his torch; the froth
hissed and bubbled, "... you'd find another tunnel just on
the other side of it."

"Round and round. Farther and farther in. Lik& a
chamber-shell," Miriamele whispered. It was more than a
little dizzying to think of such an endless spiral of mud
and shadows. Again she fought down rising panic.
"Still ..." she began.

There was a scuttling movement in the tunnel before
them.

The ghant had apparently stepped out of another side
tunnel; it crouched motionless in the middle of the pas-
sage as though stunned. Isgrimnur also froze for a mo-
ment, then slowly walked forward. The ghant, devoid of
anything that could truly be called a face, stared at their
approach, the tiny legs below, its head straightening and
contracting. Suddenly it turned and scuttled away up the
tunnel. Isgrimnur hesitated for a moment, then ran heav-
ily after it, struggling to keep his balance. He stopped and
hurled his spear, then pulled up suddenly with a hiss of
pain that made Miriamele's heart race.

"Damn! I've hit my head. Careful, the cursed roof is
low here." He rubbed at his forehead-

"Did you get it?"

"I think so. I can't quite see it yet." He went forward
a little way. "Yes. It's dead—or it looks it, anyway."

Miriamele came up beside him, peering around the
duke's wide shoulders at the thing in the pool of torch-
light. The ghant lay in the mud of the passageway with
Isgrimnur's spear protruding from the armor of its back;

the wound oozed a thin fluid a shade paler than blood.
The jointed legs twitched a few times, then slowly came
to rest as Camaris stepped forward and reached out his
long arm to turn the creature over. The ghant's face was
as blank in death as in life. The old man, with a contem-
plative look, scooped a handful of mucky earth from the

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

505

tunnel floor and dropped it onto the dead thing's chest. It
was a strange gesture, Miriamele thought.

"Come," Isgrimnur muttered.

The new tunnel did not twist as much as the first had.
It ran steeply downward, bumpy and sodden, the walls as
uneven as if they had been chewed out of the mud by
monstrous jaws: looking at the gleaming strands of foam,
Miriamele decided that was not a pleasant thought to pur-
sue.

"Curse it," Isgrimnur said suddenly. "I'm stuck."

His boot had sunk deep into the squelching mud of the
tunnel floor. Miriamele held out her arm to him so he
could balance as he pulled. A terrible odor rose from
the disturbed mud, and tiny wet things brought to light by
Isgrimnur's struggles quickly buried themselves again.
The Rimmersman, for all his efforts, only seemed to sink
deeper.

"It's like that sucking sand Tiamak said they have in
the swamp. Can't get free." There was an edge of panic
in Isgrimnur's voice.

"It's just mud." Miriamele tried to sound calm, but she
could not help wondering what would happen if the
ghants came upon them suddenly. "Leave the boot if you
have to."

"It's my whole leg, not just the boot." Indeed, one leg
had now sunk to the knee, and the foot of the other boot
was also lodged in the slime. The carrion smell grew
worse.

Camaris stepped forward, then braced his own legs to
either side of Isgrimnur's foot before taking the
Rimmersman's leg in his hands; Miriamele prayed there
was only one patch of treacherous mud. If not, they might
both become trapped. What would she do then?

The old knight heaved. Isgrimnur grunted in pain, but
his foot did not come loose. Camaris pulled again, so
strenuously that the cords on his neck grew taut as ropes.
With a sucking gasp, Isgrimnur's leg came free; Camaris
tugged him away to a firmer patch of ground.

The duke stood bent over for a moment, examining the
glob of mud below his knee. "Just stuck," he said. He

506

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was breathing heavily. "Just stuck. Let's keep moving."
The fear was not entirely gone from his voice.

They sloshed on, trying to find the driest spots to walk.
The smoke of the torches and the stench of the mud was
making Miriamele feel ill, so she was almost heartened
when the narrow passage opened at last into a wider
room, a sort of grotto in which the white froth hung like
stalactites. They entered it cautiously, but it seemed as de-
serted as the tunnel had been. As they made their way
across the chamber, stepping around the larger puddles,

Miriamele looked up.

"What are those?" she asked, frowning. Large, faintly
luminous sacs sagged from the ceiling, hanging unpleas-
antly close overhead. Each was as long as a crofter's
hammock, with thin, cobwebby white tendrils depending
from its center, a wispy fringe that drifted lazily in the
warm air rising from the torches.

"I don't know, but I don't like them," Isgrimnur said
with a grimace of distaste.

"I think they're egg pouches. You know, like the spider
eggs you see on the bottoms of leaves."

"Haven't looked much at the bottoms of leaves," the
duke muttered. "And I don't want to look at these any
longer than I have to."

"Shouldn't we do something? Kill them or something?

Bum them?"

"We're not here to kill all these bugs," said Isgrimnur.
"We're here to get in and find that poor little marsh fel-
low, then get out. God only knows what would happen if
we started mucking around with these things."

With mud sucking at their bootheels, they made their
way quickly to the other side of the chamber, where the
tunnel resumed its former size. Miriamele, drawn by a
horrid sort of interest, turned back for a last glance. In the
fading light of the torch, she thought she saw a shadowy
movement in one of the sacs, as though something was
pawing at the maggot-white membrane, seeking a way
out. She wished she hadn't looked.

Within a few steps the passageway turned and they
found themselves facing a half-dozen ghants. Several had

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER

507

been climbing up the tunnel wall and now hung in place,
clicking in apparent surprise. The others squatted on the
floor, mud-smeared shells glimmering dully in the
torchglow. Miriamele felt her heart turn over.

Isgrimnur stepped forward and wagged Kvalnir from
side to side. Swallowing hard, Miriamele moved up be-
hind him and lifted her torch. After a few more seconds
of cluttering indecision, the ghants turned and scrambled
away down the tunnel.

'They're afraid of us!" Miriamele was exhilarated.

"Perhaps," said Isgrimnur. "Or perhaps they're going
for their friends. Let's get on." He began walking swiftly,
head hunched beneath the low ceiling.

"But that's the direction they went," Miriamele pointed
out.

"I said, it's the heart of this wretched place we want."

They passed numerous side tunnels as they traveled
downward, but Isgrimnur seemed certain of where he was
going. The humming continued to grow louder; the stench
of putrefaction grew stronger, too, until Miriamele's head
ached. They passed through two more of the egg
chambers—if that was indeed what they were—hurrying
through both. Miriamele no longer felt any urge to linger
and stare.

They came upon the centra) chamber so suddenly that
they almost fell through the tunnel mouth and tumbled
down the sloping mud into the vast swarm of ghants.

The room was huge and dark; the torches of Miriamele
and her companions cast the only light, but it was enough
to reveal the great crawling horde, the faint wink of their
shells as they clambered over each other in the darkness
at the bottom of the chamber, the muted glimmering of
their countless eyes. The chamber was a long stone's
throw in width, with walls of piled and smoothed mud.
The entire floor was covered with many-legged things,
hundreds and hundreds of ghants.

The humming sound that arose from the squirming
mass was stronger here, a pulsing throb of sound so pow-
erful that Miriamele could feel it in her teeth and the
bones of her head.

508

Tad Williams

"Mother of Usires," Isgrimnur swore brokenly.
Miriamele felt chilly and light-headed. "W-what ..."
She swallowed bile and tried again. "What ... do we

do?"

Isgrimnur leaned forward, squinting. The swarm of
ghants did not appear to have noticed them, though the
nearest was only a dozen cubits away: they seemed en-
meshed in some dreadful and all-consuming activity.
Miriamele fought to catch her breath. Maybe they were
laying their eggs here and, caught up in the grip of Na-
ture, would not notice the interlopers.

"What's that at the middle?" Isgrimnur whispered- The
duke was having trouble keeping his voice from breaking.
"That thing they're all gathered around?"

Miriamele strained to see, although at that moment
there was nothing she would less rather look at. It was
like the worst vision of hell, a writhing pile of muddy
things without hope or joy, legs kicking poimlessly, shells
scraping as they rubbed against each other—and always
the terrible droning, the ceaseless grinding sound of the
assembled ghants. Miriamele blinked and forced herself
to concentrate. At the center, where the activity seemed
the most fervid, stood a row of pale, shining lumps. The
nearest had a dark spot at the top which seemed to be
moving. It took her a moment to realize that the spot atop
the gleaming mass was a head—a human head.

"It's Tiamak," she gasped, horrified- Her stomach
heaved. "He's stuck in something terrible—it's like a
pudding. Oh, Elysia Mother of God, we have to help

him'."

"Ssshhh." Isgrimnur, who looked as sickened as
Miriamele felt, gestured her to silence. "Think," he mur-
mured. "Got to think."

The tiny ball that was Tiamak's head began to wiggle
back and forth atop the gelatinous mound. As Miriamele
and Isgrimnur stared in amazement, the mouth opened
and Tiamak began to shout in a loud voice. But instead of
words, what roared out was the tormented sound of buzz-
ing, clicking ghant-speech—something that sounded so

TO  GREEN   ANGEL TOWER

509

cruelly wrong coming from the little Wrannaman's mouth
that Miriamele burst into tears.

"What have they done to him'?" she cried. Suddenly
there was movement beside her, a rush of hot air as a
torch swished past, then the flame was bobbing down the
slope toward the floor and the squirming congregation of
ghants.

"Camaris!" Isgrimnur shouted, but the old man was al-
ready forcing his way through the outermost ghants,
swinging his torch like a scythe. The great humming
sound faltered, leaving echoes in Miriamele's ears. The
ghants around Camaris started to buzz shrilly, and others
in the vast gathering took up the cries of alarm. The tall
old man waded through them like a master of hounds
come to take the fox away. Agitated creatures swirled
around his legs, some clutching at his cloak and breeches
even as he knocked others away with his club.

"Oh, God help me, he can't do it himself," Isgrimnur
groaned- He began making his way down the slippery
mud, spreading his arms for balance. "Stay there," he
called to Miriamele.

"I'm coming with you," she shouted back.

"No, damn it," the duke cried. "Stay there with the
torch so we can find our way back to this tunnel' If we
lose the light, we're done for!"

He turned, lifting Kvalnir over his head, and swung it
at the nearest ghants. There was an awful hollow smack
as he struck the first one. He took a few steps forward
into the swarm and the noise of his struggle was lost in
the greater uproar.

The humming had completely died out. The great
chamber was now filled instead with the staccato cries of
angry ghants, a dreadful chorus of wet clicking.
Miriamele tried to make out what was happening, but
Isgrimnur had already lost his torch and was now little
more than a dark shape in the middle of a seething mass
of shells and twitching legs. Somewhere closer to the cen-
ter, Camaris' torch still cut the air like a banner of fire,
swinging back and forth, back and forth, as he waded to-
ward the spot where Tiamak was prisoned.

5io Tad Williams

Miriamele was terrified but furious. Why should she
wait while Isgrimnur and Camaris risked their lives?
They were her friends! And what if they died or were
captured? Then she would be alone, forced to try and find
her way out, pursued by those horrible things. It was stu-
pid. She wouldn't do it. But what else could she do?

Think, girl. think, she told herself, even as she hopped
up and down anxiously, trying to see if Isgrimnur was
still on his feet. Do what? What?

She couldn't stand waiting. It was too horrible. She
took the two remaining torches from her belt and lit them.
When they were burning, she thrust them down into the
mud on either side of the tunnel mouth, then took a deep
breath and followed Isgrimnur's track down the slope, her
legs so wobbly she feared she might fall down. Unreality
gripped her: she couldn't be doing this. Her skin was
pricklingly cold. No one with their wits left would go
down into that pit. But somehow her booted feet kept
moving.

"Isgrimnur!" she shrieked. "Where are you?"

Cold muddy legs clutched at her, chitinous things like
animate tree branches. The hissing creatures were all
around; knobby heads butted at her legs and she felt her
stomach thrash again. She kicked out like a horse, trying
to drive them back. A claw caught at her leg and hooked
itself into her boot top; the torch momentarily illuminated
her target, which gleamed like a wet stone. She lifted her
short spear, almost dropping the torch, which was
clutched awkwardly in the same hand, and stabbed down
as hard as she could. The spear thumped into something
which gave satisfyingly. When she jerked it back, the
claw let go.

It was easier to swing the club, but it did not seem to
kill the things. At every blow they fell and tumbled, but
a moment later they were back again, scratching, clasp-
ing, worse than any nightmare. After a few moments she
pushed the cudgel into her belt and took up the torch in
her free hand, which seemed at least to keep them at bay.
She hit one of the ghants full in its empty face, and some
of the burning palm oil spattered and stuck. The thing

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER

511

shrieked like a fool's whistle and dove forward, digging
itself into the mud, but another clambered over its quiv-
ering shell to take its place. She shouted in fear and dis-
gust as she kicked it aside. The army of ghants was
never-ending.

"Miriamele!" It was Isgrimnur, somewhere ahead of
her. "Is that you!?"

"Here!" she cried, her voice tearing along the edge,
threatening to become a shriek that would never stop.
"Oh, hurry, hurry, hurry!"

"I told you to stay!" he shouted. "Camaris is coming
back! See the torch!"

She stabbed at one of the things before her, but her
spear only scraped along the shell. Out in the churning
mass there was suddenly a glint of flame. "1 see it!"

"We're coming!" The duke was barely audible above
the rattling voices of the ghants. "Stay where you are and
wave your torch!"

"I'm here," she howled, "I'm here!"

The sea of writhing creatures seemed to pulse as
though a wave rolled through it. The light of the torch jig-
gled above them, moving closer. Miriamele fought
desperately—there was still a chance! She swung her
torch in as wide an arc as she could, trying to keep her at-
tackers at a distance. A clawing leg caught at the brand
and suddenly it was gone, sizzling into the mud and leav-
ing her in darkness. She thrust out wildly with the spear.

"Here!" she screamed. "My torch is gone!"

There was no reply from Isgrimnur. All was lost.
Miriamele wondered briefly if she would be able to use
the spear on herself—certainly she could never let them
have her alive....

Something grasped her arm. Shrieking, she struggled
but could not break free.

"It's me!" cried Isgrimnur. "Don't stick me!" He pulled
her against his broad side and shouted to Camaris, who
was still some distance away. The torch came closer, the
ghants dancing around it like water drops on a hot stone.
"How will we find our way out?" Isgrimnur bellowed.

"I left torches by the door." Miriamele turned to look,

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Tdd Williams

even as something snatched at her cloak. "There!" She re-
alized Isgrimnur could not see her pointing. She kicked
and the snagging claw fell away. "Behind you."

Isgrimnur lifted her bodily and carried her for a few
steps, clearing the way with Kvalnir until they had pushed
through a clump of buzzing creatures and found their feet
on the upward slope.

"We have to wait for Camaris."

"He's coming," Isgrimnur bellowed. "Move!"

"Did he get Tiamak?"

"Move!"

Slipping back half as far as each step took her forward,
Miriamele struggled up the muddy incline toward the
light of the twin torches. She could hear Isgrimnur's
grunting breath behind her, and at intervals the muffled
crack of Kvalnir's steel against the shells of their pursu-
ers. When she reached the top she grasped the two
torches and pulled them from the mud, then turned, ready
to fight again. Isgrimnur was right behind her, and the
flickering brand that she knew must belong to Camaris
was at the bottom of the slope.

"Hurry!" she called down. The torch paused, then
waved from side to side, as though Camaris used it to
keep the swarm away as he climbed. Now she could see
his hair gleaming silver-yellow in the torchlight. "Help
him." she pleaded with Isgrimnur. The duke took a few
steps down, Kvalnir moving in a blurry arc, and in a mo-
ment Camaris had broken free and the two of them came
tripping and sliding up the slope to the tunnel mouth.
Camaris had lost his club. Tiamak, covered with white
jelly and apparently senseless, hung over his shoulder.
Miriamele stared at the Wrannaman's slack features in
dismay.

"Go, damn it!" Isgrimnur pushed Miriamele toward the
tunnel. She tore her eyes from Tiamak's sticky form and
began to run, waving her burning brand as she went, mak-
ing shadows leap and streak madly across the dun walls.

The floor of the chamber behind them seemed to erupt
as the ghants came scurrying in pursuit. Isgrimnur pushed
through into the tunnel; a mass of angrily clicking shapes

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER            513

followed him, a wave of armored flesh. The pursuing
ghants might have caught the duke and his companions
within moments, but their numbers were so great that
they filled the passage almost completely, tangling them-
selves. Those following tried to force their way past;

within instants the tunnel mouth was clogged with writh-
ing, leg-waving bodies.

"Lead the way!" the duke cried.

It was difficult to move quickly with her head hunched
down and her back bent, and the muddy floor had been
difficult to traverse even at walking speed. Miriamele fell
down several times, once giving her ankle a nasty twist.
She scarcely felt the pain, but a dim part of her thoughts
knew that if she survived, she would certainly feel it later.
She did her best to look for the marks Isgrimnur had so
conscientiously scraped in the foamy walls, but by the
time they had gone a few hundred paces from the great
chamber Miriamele realized in horror that she had missed
a turning. She knew that they should have passed through
at least one of the egg-chambers by now, but instead they
were still in one of the featureless tunnels—and this one
was sloping downward, when the return trip should have
led up.

"Isgrimnur, I think we're lost!" She slowed to a trot,
holding her torch close to the dripping walls as she
looked desperately for something that she recognized.
She could hear Camaris' heavy tread just behind.

The Rimmersman swore floridly. "Just keep running,
then—can't be helped!"

Miriamele sped her pace again. Her legs were
aching, and each breath pushed at her lungs with sharp
needles. Positive now that they had lost their course, she
chose the next of the cross tunnels that seemed to lead up-
ward. The slope was not steep, but the slippery mud made
climbing difficult. Above the sound of her own ragged
breath she could hear the clatter of the ghants rising again
behind them.

The top of the rise came into view, another tunnel run-
ning perpendicularly to theirs, about a hundred ells
above; but even as Miriamele's heart lightened a little, a

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Tad Williams

swarm of ghants came scuttling into the tunnel below
them. Moving low to the ground and traveling on four
legs instead of two, the creatures were making much
swifter time up the sloping pathway. Miriamele dug
harder, forcing herself up the final slope. She only hesi-
tated an instant before choosing the nght-hand side of the
cross-tunnel. Even Camaris' breathing was loud and harsh
now. A few of the fastest ghants reached Isgrimnur, who
was bringing up the rear. Bellowing with anger and dis-
gust, the duke made a broad sweep with Kvalnir; hissing,
the ghants tumbled back down into the boiling mass of
their fellows.

Before Minamele and her companions had gone fifty
paces down the new passage, the ghants reached the top
of the rise behind them and spilled out into the tunnel. On
flat ground they traveled even more swiftly, hopping for-
ward at a terrifying pace- Some ran directly up the walls
before swivelmg to pursue the fleeing company.

"We must turn and fight," Isgrimnur gasped. "Camaris!
Put the marsh man down'"

"Oh, God love us, no!" cried Miriamele, "I hear more
of them ahead!" It was a nightmare, a dreadful, endless
nightmare. "Isgrimnur, we're trapped!"

"Stop, damn it. stop! We'll fight here!"

"No!" Miriamele was horrified. "If we stop here, we'll
have to fight both swarms, front and back. Keep run-
ning!"

She took a few steps farther down, but she could tell no
one was following her. She fumed to see Isgrimnur star-
ing grimly at the ghants behind them, who had slowed
when their prey did and now came forward with deliber-
ate caution, their numbers swelling as dozens more
scrambled up from the tunnel below, Miriamele turned
and saw jiggling spots down the corridor before her as the
glossy, dead eyes of the ghants there began to catch the
torchlight.

"Oh, Merciful Elysia," Miriamele breathed, utterly de-
feated. Camaris, who stood beside her, was staring at the
floor as though musing on some odd but not terribly im-
portant thought. Tiamak lay against his shoulder, eyes

TO  GREEN   ANGEL  TOWER

515

closed and mouth open like a sleeping child. Miriamele
felt a moment of sadness. She had wanted to save the
marsh man ... it would have been so lovely to save
him....

With a bellow, Isgrimnur abruptly turned. To
Miriamele's complete astonishment, he kicked the wall
behind him as hard as he could. Caught up in what must
be some fit of insane frustration, he slammed his boot
sole against it again and again.

"Isgrimnur... !" Miriamele began, but at that moment
the duke's boot smashed through the wall, making a hole
the size of his head in the crumbling mud. He lashed out
again and another section fell through.

"Help me!" he grunted. Miriamele stepped forward, but
before she could lend any aid, Isgrimnur's next blow
knocked out a large section- There was now a hole in the
wall almost two cubits high, with nothing beyond but
blackness.

"Go on!" the duke urged her. A dozen paces away the
ghants were clicking madly. Miriamele pushed the torch
through the gap, then forced her head and shoulders after
it, half-certain she would feel jointed claws reach down
and clutch her. Slipping and -struggling, she scrambled
through, praying that there was some solid ground there,
that she would not fall into nothingness. Her hands
touched the muck of another tunnel floor; she caught a
momentary glimpse of the empty passage that surrounded
her before she turned back to help the others. Camaris
pushed Tiamak's limp form through to her. She nearly
dropped him—the slender Wrannaman did not weigh
much, but he was sagging dead weight covered with slip-
pery ooze. The old knight followed, then Isgrimnur
squeezed his own broad body through a moment later. Al-
most on his heels, the hole filled with the reaching arms
of ghants, hard and shiny as polished wood.

Kvalnir slashed out, bringing fizzing squeals of pain
from the far side of the hole. The arms were quickly with-
drawn, but the chittering of the ghants continued to grow.

"They'll decide to come through in a moment, sword
or no sword," the duke panted.

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Tad Williams

Miriamele stared at the gap for a moment. The stench
of the ghants was strong, as was the coarse noise they
made as they rubbed against each other. They were gath-
ering for another attack, and they were only a few scant
inches away.

"Give me your shin," she told Isgrimnur suddenly.
"And his, too." She pointed at Camaris.

The duke looked at her for a moment in alarm, as
though she might have suddenly lost her wits, then
quickly stripped off his tattered shirt and handed it to her.
Miriamele held it to the flame of her torch until it
caught—it was a maddeningly slow process, since that
shirt was damp and mud-streaked—then used her spear-
point to push the burning cloth into the gap in the wall-
Surprised hisses and quiet snicking noises came from the
ghants on the other side. Miriamele pushed Camaris' shirt
in beside it; when it had caught fire and both garments
were burning steadily, she took Isgrimnur's heavy cloak
as well and crammed it into the remaining space.

"Now we run again," she said- "I don't think they like
fire." She was surprised at how calm she suddenly felt,
despite a certain light-headedness. "But it won't hold
them long."

Camaris scooped up Tiamak and they all hastened on.
At each turning they chose the tunnel that seemed to lead
upward. Two more times they broke through sections of
the passageway walls and sniffed at the holes like dogs,
hunting for outside air. At last they found a tunnel that,
although lower and narrower than many through which
they had passed, seemed somehow fresher.

The clamor of pursuit had begun again, although as yet
none of the creatures had come into view. Miriamele ig-
nored the gelatinous froth beneath her hands as she half-
walked, half-crawled through the low tunnel. Strands of
pale foam fell wetly across her face and fouled her hair.
A curl of it touched her open lips, and before she could
spit it out, she tasted bitter musk. At the next bend in the
passage the tunnel suddenly became larger. After a few
more lurching steps, they turned another comer and found
light splashed across the mud.

TO  GREEN  ANGEL TOWER

517

"Daylight!" Miriamele shouted. She had never been
happier to see it.

They stumbled along until the tunnel turned again, then
found themselves facing a round but ragged hole in the
tunnel wall, beyond which hung the sky—gray and dim,
but the sky nonetheless, the glorious sky. She threw her-
self forward, clambering through the hole and out onto a
rounded floor of lumpy mud.

Treetops waved below them, so green and intricate that
Miriamele's muck-deadened mind almost could not take
them in. They were standing atop one of the upper parts
of the nest; a scant two hundred cubits away lay the wa-
tercourse, tranquil as a great snake. There was no fiatboat
waiting.

Camaris and Isgrimnur followed her out onto the roof
of the nest.

"Where is the monk?" Isgrimnur howled. "Damnation!
Damnation! I knew he couldn't be trusted!"

"Never mind that now," said Miriamele. "We have to
get off this thing."

After a quick search they found a way down onto a
lower roof. They teetered across a slender ridge of mud
for some dozen paces before reaching the safety of the
next level, then continued from flat spot to flat spot, mov-
ing always toward the front of the nest and the waiting
watercourse. As they reached the outermost point, from
which it was only a leap of three or four ells down to the
ground, a company of ghants surged out of the hole near
the top of the nest.

"Here they come," Isgrimnur wheezed- "Jump down!"

Before Miriamele could do so, another, larger swarm of
the creatures came spilling out of one of the nest's large-
front entrances, gathering quickly into an agitated mass
directly below them. Miriamele felt a deathly, terrible
weariness settle over her. To be so close—it wasn't fair!

"Holy Aedon, save us now." There was little strength
left in the duke's voice. "Move back, Miriamele. I'll jump
first."

"You can't!" she cried. "There are too many of them."

"We can't stay here." Indeed, the other ghants were

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Tad Williams

moving rapidly down across the uneven upper levels of
the nest, leggy as spiders, nimble as apes. They were
clicking in anticipation and their black eyes glittered.

A bright streak abruptly flashed across the beach. Star-
tled, Miriamele looked down at the ghanis below, who
were milling wildly. Their percussive cries were even wil-
der and more shrill than they had been, and several of
them seemed to have caught fire. Miriamele looked out to
the watercourse, trying to make sense of what was hap-
pening. The flatboat had floated into view. Cadrach, who
stood spread-legged in the square bow, held something in
his hand that looked like a large torch, its upper end burn-
ing brightly.

As Miriamele stared in numb astonishment, the monk
swung the thing forward and a ball of fire seemed to leap
from the end, arcing across the water to land amid the
ghanis clustered on the sand below her. The fiery blob
burst, scattering great splashes of flame which stuck to
the creatures like burning glue. Some of those who were
struck fell to the ground with their shells bubbling from
the heat and began to pipe like boiling lobsters, while oth-
ers ran back and forth, tearing ineffectually at their own
armor, clacking and clattering like broken wagon wheels.
Out on the flatboat, Cadrach bent; when he straightened,
another flame had blossomed at the end of his strange
stick. He threw once more and another gout of liquid fire
spattered across the shrieking ghants. The monk raised his
hands to his mouth-

"Jump now!" he cried, his voice echoing faintly.
"Hurry!"

Miriamele turned and looked briefly at Isgrimnur. The
duke's face was slack with wonder, but he drew himself
together long enough to give Miriamele a gentle but pur-
poseful shove.

"You heard him," he growled. "Jump!"
She did, then landed hard in the sand and rolled. A fi-
ery bit of something caught in her cloak, but she thumped
it out with her hands. A moment later, with a whoof of
outrushing breath, Isgrimnur crashed down beside her.
The ghants, who were squealing and dashing madly back

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER

519

and forth across the grass-strewn beach, paid little atten-
tion to their former quarry. The duke turned and climbed
to his feet, then reached up his hands. Camaris, leaning
far over the uneven edge of the nest, dropped Tiamak
down to him. The duke was knocked back to the sand, but
cradled the unmoving Wrannaman; a moment later
Camaris had vaulted down as well. The company dashed
across the strand. A few ghants who had not been struck
by Cadrach's fiery attack scuttled toward them but
Miriamele and Camaris kicked them out of the way. The
fleeing company stumbled down the bank and waded out
into the sluggish green water.

Miriamele sprawled in the bottom of the flatboat, gasp-
ing for air. With a few shoves of the pole, the monk sent
the boat bobbing out toward the middle of the waterway,
well out of reach of the capering ghants.

"Are you hurt?" Cadrach's face was pale, his eyes al-
most feverishly bright.

"What ... what did you... ?" She could not find the
breath to finish her sentence.

Cadrach dipped his head, shrugging- "The oil-palm
leaves. I had an idea after you-went into ... that place. I
cooked them. There are things I know how to do." He
held up the tube he had made from a large reed. "I used
this to throw the fire." The hand that clutched the tube
was covered with angry blisters.

"Oh, Cadrach, look what you've done."

Cadrach turned to look at Camaris and Isgrimnur, who
were huddled over Tiamak. Behind them on the shoreline,
the ghants were leaping and hissing like damned souls
made to dance. Smears of flame still burned along the
nest's front walls, sending knots of inky smoke into the
late afternoon sky.

"No, look what you've done," the monk said, and
smiled a grim but not entirely unhappy smile-

PART TWO
A

Tfte
Winding Road




17

Bonfire Night
A

"I dbn^t think- I want to go, Simon." Jeremias was
doing his best, with a rag and a smoothing stone, to clean
Simon's sword.

"You don't have to." Simon grunted in pain as he
pulled on his boot. Three days had passed since the battle
on the frozen lake, but every muscle still felt as though it
had been pounded on a blacksmith's anvil. "This is Just
something he wants me to do."

Jeremias seemed relieved, but was unwilling to accept
his freedom so easily, "But shouldn't your squire go
along when the prince calls -for you? What if you need
something that you've forgotten—who would go back for
it?"

Simon laughed, but broke off as he felt a band of pain
tighten around his ribs. The day after the battle he had
barely been able to stand. His body had felt like a bag of
broken crockery. Even now, he still moved like an old,
old man. "I'll just have to go and get it myself—or I'll
call for you. Don't worry. It's not like that here, which
you should know as well as anybody. It's not a royal
court, like at the Hayholt."

Jeremias peered closely at the blade's edge, then shook
his head. "You say that, Simon, but you never can tell
when princes will get squinty on you. You can never tell
when they might suddenly feel their blood and go all
royal."

"It's a risk I'll have to take. Now give me that damned
sword before you polish it away to a sliver."

524

Tad Williams

Jeremias looked up anxiously. He had regained a little
weight since coming to New Gadrinsett, but provisions
were scarce and he was still far from being the chubby
boy Simon had grown up with; he had a drawn look that
Simon doubted would ever completely go away. "I would
never harm your sword," he said seriously.

"Oh, God's Teeth," Simon growled, swearing with the.
practiced indifference of a blooded soldier. "I was joking.
Now give it here. I've got to go,"

Jeremias gave him a haughty look- "One thing about
jokes, Simon—they're supposed to be funny." Despite the
grin that was beginning to crinkle his lips, he handed the
blade over carefully. "And I'll let you know if you're
ever actually funny, I promise."

Simon's witty reply—which in truth he had not yet
formulated—was forestalled by the opening of the tent
flap. A small figure appeared in the doorway, silent and
solemn.

"Leieth!" Jeremias said. "Come in. Would you like to
go for a walk with me? Or I could finish telling you that
story about Jack Mundwode and the bear."

The little girl moved a few steps into the tent, which
was her way of showing assent. Her eyes, as they turned
momentarily to Simon's, were disturbingly adult. He re-
membered how she had looked on the Dream Road—a
free creature in its element, flying, exulting—and felt an
obscure sense of shame, as if he were somehow helping
to keep a beautiful thing prisoned.

"I'll be on my way," he said. 'Take care of Jeremias,
Leieth. Don't let him handle anything sharp."

Jeremias flung the polishing cloth at him as he stepped
through the tent flap.

Outside, Simon took a deep breath. The air was chill,
but he thought it felt subtly wanner than it had a few days
before, as though somewhere nearby Spring was looking
for a way in.

We only beat Fengbald, he cautioned himself. We didn 't
hurt the Storm King at all. So there's not much chance
we've driven the winter away.

But the thought raised another question. Why hadn't

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

525

the Storm King sent help to Fengbald as he had to Elias
at the siege of Naglimund? Survivors' stories of the hor-
ror of the Norns' attack were almost as vivid in Simon's
mind as the memories of his own strange adventures. If
the swords were so important, and if Josua was known by
the Hikeda'ya to have one of them—which, according to
the prince and Deomoth, was almost certainly the case—
why hadn't Sesuad'ra's defenders found themselves star-
ing down at an army of ice-giants and armored Noms?
Was it something about the Stone itself?

Perhaps because it is a Sithi place. But they weren't
afraid to attack Jao e-Tinukai'i, finally.

He shook his head. It was something to share with
Binabik and Geloe, although he was sure it had already
occurred to them. Or had it? It might be almost too over-
whelming to add another unsolvable puzzle to the pile
they already faced. Simon was so tired of questions with-
out answers.

His boots crunched in the thin snow as he made his
way across the Fire Garden toward Leavetaking House.
He had gladly played the fool with Jeremias, since it
seemed to bring his friend out of his worries and evil
memories, but Simon was not in a particularly cheerful
frame of mind. His last nights had been filled with
dreams of the battle's carnage, of madness and blood and
screaming horses. Now he was going to see Josua, and
the prince was in an even blacker mood than he was. Si-
mon was not looking forward to this at all.

He stopped, his frosty breath rising around his head in
a cloud, and stared at the broken dome of the Observa-
tory. If only he dared take the mirror and try to speak
with Jiriki again! But the fact that the Sithi had not come.
despite the defenders' great need, made it clear that Jiriki
had more important things on his mind than the doings of
mortals. Also, the Sitha had expressly warned Simon that
this was a perilous time to walk the Road of Dreams. Per-
haps if he tried, he would somehow bring the Storm
King's attention to Sesuad'ra—Simon might shatter the
very indifference that seemed to have been the single
greatest reason for their unbelievable victory.

526                   Tad Williams

He was a man now, or might as well be. There could be
no more mooncalf tricks, he decided. The stakes were far
too high.

Leavetaking House was poorly lit: only a few torches
burned in the sconces, so that the great room seemed half-
dissolved in shadow. Josua was standing by the bier.

"Thank you for coming, Simon." The prince barely
raised his eyes before returning his gaze to Deomoth's
body, which was laid out on the slab of stone with the
Tree and Drake banner draped across it, as though the
knight were only sleeping beneath a thin blanket.
"Binabik and Geloe are there," the prince said, gesturing
to a pair of figures sitting beside the firepit near the far
wall. "I will Join you in a moment."

Simon walked to the fire with a careful tread, trying to
avoid disrespectful noise. The troll and the witch woman
were talking quietly-

"Greetings, friend Simon," said Binabik. "Come, sit
and be warm."

Simon sat cross-legged on the stone floor, then moved
forward to a warmer spot. "He seems even sadder than
yesterday," he whispered.

The troll looked at Josua. "It has struck him with a
great weightiness. It is as though all the people he was
loving, and for whose safety he was fearing, were all
killed with Deomoth."

Geloe made a noise of mild exasperation. "You cannot
fight battles without losses. Deomoth was a good man,
but others died, too."

"Josua is now mourning for all of them, I am
thinking—in his way." The troll shrugged. "But I have
certainty he will recover."

The witch woman nodded. "Yes, but we have little
time. We must strike while the advantage is ours."

Simon looked at her curiously. Geloe seemed as age-
less as ever, but she seemed to have lost a little of her
vast assurance. Not that it would be surprising if she had:

the past year had been a dreadful one- "I wanted to ask

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER

527

you something, Geloe," he said. "Did you know about
Fengbald?"

She turned her yellow eyes on him. "Did I know he
would send someone onto the field wearing his armor, to
fool us? No. But I did know that Josua had conspired
with Helfgrim, the Lord Mayor. I did not know whether
Fengbald would take the bait."

"I am afraid that I was also knowing, Simon," said
Binabik. "My help was needed for planning how to split
the ice. It was done with the helping of some of my
Qanuc fellows."

Simon felt a little warmth rise to his cheeks. "So every-
body knew but me?"

Geloe shook her head. "No, Simon. Besides Helfgrim,
Josua and myself, there were only Binabik, Deornoth,
Freosel, and the trolls that helped prepare the trap—that
was all who knew. It was our last hope, and we dared not
take a chance of it being even rumored to Fengbald."

"Didn't you trust me?"

Binabik laid a calming hand on his shoulder. "Trust
was not the thing that was mattering, Simon. You and any
others who were fighting on the ice could have been cap-
tured. Even the bravest will tell all they know if they are
under torturing—and Fengbald was not being the sort for
scruples in such things. The fewer who knew, the better
were being chances that the secret would hold. If there
had been need to tell you, as there was with those others,
we would have told you with no hesitating."

"Binabik is right, Simon." Josua had come up silently
as they spoke and now stood over them. The firelight
threw his shadow across the ceiling, a long empty stripe
of darkness. "I trust you as fully as I trust anyone—
anyone living, that is." A hint of something darted across
his face. "I ordered that only those necessary to the plan
should know. I am sure you can understand."

Simon swallowed. "Of course. Prince Josua."

Josua lowered himself down onto a stone and gazed ab-
sently at the wavering flames. "We have won a great
victory—it is a miracle, truly. But the price was so very
high...."

528 Tad Williams

"No price that kept innocent people alive could be too
high," Geloe replied.

"Perhaps, But there is a possibility that Fengbald
would have let the women and children go...."

"But now they are alive and free.^ said Geloe shortly.
"And a good number of the men are, too. And we have
had an unexpected victory."

The ghost of a smile flickered on Josua's lips. "Are
you to take Deomoth's place, then, Valada Geloe? For
that is what he always did for me—reminded me when I
began to brood."

"I cannot take his place, Josua, but I do not think we
need to apologize for winning. Mourning is honorable, of
course. I do not seek to take that away from you."

"No, of course not." The prince looked at her for a mo-
ment, then pivoted slowly and surveyed the long hall.
"We must honor the dead."

There was a scrape of leather in the doorway. Sludig
stood there, a pair of saddlebags draped over his brawny
arm. Looking at the strain on the Rimmersman's face, Si-
mon wondered if they were packed full of stones. "Prince

Josua?"

The prince turned. "Yes, Sludig?"

"These are all that were found. They have Fengbald's
crest on them. They are soaking wet, though. I have not

opened them."

"Put them down here by the fireside. Then please sit
and speak with us. You have been a great help, Sludig."

The Rimmersman bobbed his head. "Thank you. Prince
Josua. But I also have another message for you. The pris-
oners are ready to talk now—or so Freosel says."

"Ah." Josua nodded. "And Freosel is no doubt right.
He is rough, but very clever. Not unlike our old friend
Einskaldir, eh, Sludig?"

"Just as you say. Highness." Sludig seemed uncomfort-
able talking to the prince. He was finally getting the at-
tention and credit he seemed to have wanted, Simon
noted, but did not seem completely happy with it.

Josua laid his hand on Simon's shoulder. "I suppose I

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

529

must go and do my duty, then," he said. "Would you
come with me, Simon?"

"Of course. Prince Josua."

"Good." Josua made a gesture toward the others. "If
you would be so good, attend me after supper. There is
much to speak about."

As they approached the door, Josua put the stump of
his right wrist beneath Simon's elbow and led him toward
the bier where Deomoth lay. Simon could not help notic-
ing that he was a little taller than the prince. It had been
a long time since he had stood so close to Josua, but he
was still surprised. He, Simon, was tall—and not just for
a youth, but for a man. It was a strange thought.

They stopped before the bier. Simon stood on the balls
of his feet, respectfully silent but anxious to move on. Be-
ing so close to the knight's body made him uncomforta-
ble. The pale, angular face that lay upon the stone slab
looked less like the Deomoth he remembered than like
something carved in soap. The skin on his face, especially
on his eyelids and nostrils, was bloodlessly translucent.

"You did not know him well, Simon. He was the best
of men."

Simon swallowed. His mouth felt dry. The dead were
... so dead. And someday Josua, Binabik, Sludig, every-
one in New Gadrinsett would be that way. Even he would
be that way, Simon realized with a feeling of distaste.
What was it like? "He was always very kind to me. High-
ness."

"He knew no other way. He was the truest knight I
have ever known."

The more Josua had spoken of Deomoth in the last few
days, the more Simon had come to realize that he had ap-
parently not known the man at all. He had seemed a sim-
ple man, kind and quiet, but hardly an exemplar of
knightliness as Josua seemed to think him, a modern
Camaris.

"He died bravely." It seemed a lame sort of condolence
to offer, but Josua smiled.

"He did. I wish you and Sludig could have reached his
side sooner, but you did your best." Josua's face changed

530

Tad Williams

abruptly, like clouds blowing across a spring sky. "I do
not mean to suggest that you two failed in some way, Si-
mon. Please forgive me—I have grown thoughtless in my
grief. Deomoth could always chivvy me out of my self-
indulgence. Ah, God, I will miss him. I think he was my
best friend, although I never knew it until he was dead."

Simon was further discomfited to see tears forming in
Josua's eyes. He wanted to look away, but was suddenly
reminded of the Sithi, and of what Strangyeard had said.
Perhaps it was the highest and the greatest who always
bore the largest griefs. How could there be shame in such
sadness?

Simon reached up and took the prince's elbow. "Come,
Josua. Let's walk. Tell me about Deornoth, since I never
had the chance to know him properly."

The prince tore his gaze away from Deomoth's alabas-
ter features. "Yes, of course. We will walk."

He let Simon lead him out the door and into the hilltop
wind.

"... And he actually came to me and apologized!"
Josua was laughing now, although there seemed little joy
in it. "As though he himself had transgressed. Poor, loyal
Deornoth." He shook his head and wiped at his eye.
"Aedon! Why is it that this cloud of regret seems to sur-
round me, Simon? Either I am pleading forgiveness, or
those around me are—it is no wonder that Elias thought
I was soft-headed. Sometimes I think he was right."

Simon suppressed a grin. "Perhaps the problem is only
because you are too quick to share your thoughts with
people you do not know well—like escaped scullions."

Josua looked at him narrowly for a moment, then
laughed, but this time his mirth seemed less constrained.
"Perhaps you are right, Simon. People like their princes
strong and unswerving, don't they?" He chuckled. "Ah,
Usires the Merciful, could they ever have a prince less
like that than me?" He looked up, squinting across the
field of tents. "God help me, I have wandered. Where is
the cave where the prisoners are kept?"

"There." Simon pointed to a rocky outcropping just in-

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER                           531

side Sesuad'ra's outer barrier, barely visible behind the
wind-shimmied walls of the tent city. Josua altered his
course and Simon followed, moving slowly to ease the
ache of his several wounds.

"I have let myself run far afield," Josua said, "and not
only in my search for the prisoners. I asked you to come
to me so I could ask you a question."

"Yes?" Simon could not help but be interested. What
could the prince possibly want of him?

"I wish to bury our dead on this hill." Josua waved his
arm, spanning the breadth of Sesuad'ra's grassy summit.
"You of all the people here know the Sithi best, I
think—or at least the most intimately, for certainly
Binabik and Geloe have studied them. Do you think that
it would be allowed? This is their place, after all."

Simon thought about this for a moment. "Allowed? I
can't imagine the Sithi preventing it, if that's what you
mean." He smiled wryly. "They didn't even show up to
defend it, so I don't think that they would suddenly arrive
with an army to keep us from burying our dead."

They walked on a short way in silence. Simon pon-
dered before speaking again. "No, I don't think they
would object—not that I could-ever claim to speak for
them," he added hurriedly. "After all, Jiriki buried his
kinsman An'nai with Grimmric, back on Urmsheim." The
days on the dragon-mountain seemed so far away now, as
though they had been spent there by another Simon, a dis-
tant relative. He kneaded the muscles of his painfully stiff
arm and sighed. "But, as I said, I cannot speak for the
Sithi. I was there for—what, months? And I still could
never hope to understand them."

Josua looked at him keenly. "What was it like to live
with them, Simon? And what was their city like—Jao ...
Jao... ?"

"Jao e-Tinukai'i." Simon was more than a little proud
at how easily the difficult syllables fell from his lips. "I
wish I could explain, Josua. It's sort of like trying to de-
scribe a dream—you can tell what happened, but you
can't quite make someone understand how it felt. They
are old. Highness, very, very old. But to look at them,

532 Tad Williams

they are young and healthy and ... and beautiful." He re-
membered Jiriki's sister Aditu. her lovely, bright, preda-
tory eyes, her smile full of secret amusement. "They have
every right to hate us, Josua—at least I think they do—
but instead they seem ... puzzled by us. As we would
feel if sheep became mighty and drove us out of our cit-
ies."

Josua laughed. "Sheep, Simon? Are you saying that the
Imperators of Nabban and King Fingil of Rimmersgard
... and my father, for that matter ... were woolly, harm-
less creatures?"

Simon shook his head. "No, I only mean that we are
that different from the Sithi. They don't understand us any
more than we understand them. Jiriki and his grand-
mother Amerasu might not be as different as some—they
certainly treated me with kindness and understanding—
but the other Sithi .. -" He stopped, at a loss. "I don't
know how to explain it."

Josua looked at him kindly. "What was the city like?"

"I tried to describe it before, when I came here. I said
then that it was like a huge boat, but that it was also like
a rainbow in front of a waterfall. That's terrible, but I still
can't describe it any better than that. It's all made of cloth
strung between the trees, but it seems as solid as any city
I've ever seen. But it looks as though they could pack it
up any moment and take it somewhere else." He laughed
despairingly. "You see, I keep running out of words!"

"I think you explain it very well, Simon." The prince's
thin features were pensive. "Ah, how I would like to truly
know the Sithi someday. I cannot understand what made
my father fear and hate them so. What a storehouse of
history and lore they must possess!"

They had reached the cave entrance, which was barred
with a makeshift portcullis of heavy, rough-cut timbers. A
guard posted there—one of Hotvig's Thrithings-men—
left the jug of coals over which he had been warming his
hands to raise the gateway and let them in.

Several more guards, an even mix of Thrithings-men
and FreosePs Erkynlanders, stood in the antechamber.
They saluted both the prince and Simon respectfully,

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER

533

much to the bemused chagrin of the latter. Freosel, rub-
bing his hands together, appeared from the depths of the
cavem.

"Your Highness ... and Sir Seoman," he said, inclining
his head. "I think time has come. They be starting to get
frisky-like. If we wait longer, we may have trouble—if
you pardon my saying so."

"I trust your judgment, Freosel," said Josua. 'Take me
to them."

The inner part of the wide cavem, which was separated
from the front by a bend in the stone walls and thus hid-
den from the sun, had been divided by the use of more
stout timbers into two stockades with a sizable open
space between them.

"They do shout at each other 'cross the cave."
Freosel's grin revealed the gap in his teeth. "Blaming
each other, like. Take turns keeping each other awake
nights. Do our job for us, they do."

Josua nodded as he approached the left-hand stockade,
then turned to Simon. "Say nothing," he said firmly. "Just
listen."

In the dim, torchlit cavern, Simon at first had trouble
making out its occupants. The. smell of urine and un-
washed bodies—something Simon had thought he could
no longer notice—was strong.

"I wish to speak with your captain," Josua called.
There was slow movement in the shadows, then a figure
in the tattered green surcoat of an Erkynguardsman
stepped up to the rough bars.

"That is me, your Highness," the soldier said.

Josua looked him over. "Sceldwine? Is that you?"

The man's embarrassment was plain in his voice. "It is,
Prince Josua."

"Well." Josua seemed to be taken aback. "I never
dreamed to see you in a place like this."

"Nor did I, Highness. Nor expected to be sent to fight
against you either, sire. It's a shame ..."

Freosel abruptly stepped forward. "Don't you listen to
him, Josua," he sneered. "He and his murdering cronies
will say anything to save their lives." He thumped his

534 Tad Williams

powerful hand against the stockade wall hard enough to
make the wood quiver. "The rest of us haven't forgot
what your kind did to Falshire."

Sceldwine, after drawing back in alarm, leaned forward
to see better. His pale face, exposed now by the torch-
light, was drawn and worried. "None of us were happy
about that." He turned to the prince. "And we did not
want to come against you. Prince Josua. You must believe
us."

Josua started to say something, but Freosel, astonish-
ingly, interrupted him. "Your people won't have it, Josua.
This ben't the Hayholt or Naglimund. We don't trust
these armored louts. If you let them live, there'll be trou-
ble."

A mumbling growl ran through the prisoners, but there
was more than a little fear in it.

"I don't want to execute them, Freosel," Josua said un-
happily. "They were sworn to my brother. What choice
did they have?"

"What choice have any of us got?" the Falshireman
shot back. 'They made the wrong one. Our blood be on
their hands. Kill them and have done. Let God worry
about choices."

Josua sighed. "What do you say, Sceldwine? Why
should I let you live?"

The Erkynguardsman seemed momentarily at a loss.
"Because we are just fighting men, serving our king,
Highness. There is no other reason." He stared out be-
tween the bars.

Josua beckoned for Freosel and Simon and walked
away from the stockade to the center of the cavern, out of
earshot.

"Well?" he said.

Simon shook his head. "Kill them, Prince Josua? I
don't .. "

Josua raised his hand. "No, no. Of course I won't kill
them." He turned to the Falshireman, who was grinning.
"Freosel has been working on them for two days. They
are convinced he wants their hides, and that the citizens
of New Gadrinsett are demanding they be hung before

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

535
Leavetaking House. We just want them in the proper
mood."

Simon was again embarrassed: he had misjudged.
"What are you going to do, then?"

"Watch me." After stalling for a few moments more,
Josua assumed an air of solemnity and walked slowly
back to the stockade and the nervous prisoners.
"Sceldwine," he said, "I may regret this, but I am going
to let you and your men live."

Freosel, scowling, snorted a great angry snort and
marched away. An audible sigh of relief rose from the
prisoners -

"But," Josua raised his finger, "we will not keep you
and feed you. You will work to earn your lives. My peo-
ple would hang me if I did any less—they will already be
very displeased to be cheated of your executions. If you
prove yourselves trustworthy, we may let you fight at our
side when we push my mad brother from the Dragonbone
Chair."

Sceldwine gripped the wooden bars with both his
hands. "We will fight for you, Josua. No one else would
show us such mercy in these mad times." His comrades
gave ragged shouts of agreement.

"Very well. I will think further on how this is to be ac-
complished." Josua nodded stiffly, then turned his back
on the prisoners. Simon followed him out into the middle
of the room once more.

"By the Ransomer," said Josua, "if they will fight for
us, what a boon! A hundred more disciplined soldiers.
They may be the first of many more defections, when
word begins to spread."

Simon smiled. "You were very convincing. Freosel,
too."

Josua looked pleased. "I think that there may be a few
strolling players in the constable's family history. As for
me—well, all princes are born liars, you know." His ex-
pression turned serious. "And now I must deal with the
mercenaries,"

"You will not make them the same offer, will you?" Si-
mon asked, suddenly worried.

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"Why not?"

"Because ... because someone who fights for gold is
different."

"All soldiers fight for gold," Josua said gently.

"That's not what I mean. You heard what Sceldwine
said. They fought because they thought they must—that's
at least partly true. Those Thrithings-men fought because
Fengbald paid them. You can't pay them with anything
but their lives."

"That's not an inconsiderable sum," Josua pointed out.

"But after they're armed again, how much weight will
that have? They're different than the Erkynguard, Josua,
and if you want to make a kingdom that's different than
your brother's, you can't build it on men like the merce-
naries." He stopped abruptly, horrified to discover he was
lecturing the prince. "I'm sorry," he blurted. "I have no
right to speak this way."

Josua was watching him, eyebrow raised. "They are
right about you, young Simon," he said slowly. "There is
a good head under that red hair of yours." He laid his
hand on Simon's shoulder. 'T had not planned to deal
with them until Hotvig could join me, in any case. I will
think carefully on what you have said."

"I hope you can forgive me my forwardness," Simon
said, abashed. "You have been very kind with me."

"I trust your thoughts, Simon, as I do Freosel's. A man
who will not listen carefully to advice honestly given is a
fool. Of course, a man who blindly takes any advice he
receives is a bigger fool." He gave Simon's shoulder a
squeeze. "Come, let us walk back. I would like to hear
more about the Sithi."

*

It was strange to use Jiriki's mirror for such a mundane
purpose as trimming his beard, but Simon had been told
by Sludig—and none too subtly—that he was looking
rather straggly. Propped on a rock, the Sithi glass winked
in the failing afternoon light. There was a faint mist in the
air which continually forced Simon to clean the mirror

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER                           537

with his sleeve. Unfamiliar with the art of grooming with
a bone knife—he could have borrowed a sharper steel
blade from Sludig, but then the Rimmersman probably
would have stood by and made comments—Simon had
accomplished little more than causing himself a few
twinges of pain when the three young women ap-
proached.

^-    Simon had seen all three of them around New
% Gadrinsett—he had even danced with two of them the
f evening he had become a knight, and the thinnest one had
made him a shirt. They seemed terribly young, even
though he was probably no more than a year older than
any of them. One of them, though, a dark-eyed girl whose
round figure and curly brown hair was a little reminiscent
of the chambermaid Hepzibah, he thought was rather
fetching.

"What are you doing. Sir Seoman?" the thin one asked.
She had large, serious eyes which she hooded with her
lashes whenever Simon looked at her too long.

"Cutting my beard," he said gruffly. Sir Seoman, in-
deed! Were they making fun of him?

"Oh, don't cut it off!" the curly-haired girl said. "It
makes you look so grand!"

"No, don't," her thin friend echoed.

The third, a short girl with straight yellow hair and a
few spots on her face, shook her head. "Don't."

"I'm just trimming it." He marveled at the silliness of
women. Just days before, people had been killed defend-
ing this place! People that these girls knew, most likely.
Yet here they were, bothering him about his beard. How
could they be so flittery? "Do you really think it looks ...
grand?" he said.

"Oh, yes," Curly-Hair blurted, then reddened, "That is,
it makes you ... it makes a man look older."

"So you think I need to look older?" he asked in his
sternest voice.

"No!" she said hurriedly. "But it looks nice."

"They say you were very brave in the battle, Sir
Seoman," said the thin girl.

538 Tad Williams

He shrugged. "We were fighting for our home ... for
our lives. I was just trying not to be killed."

"Just like Camaris would have said," the thin girl sighed.

Simon laughed aloud. "Nothing like Camaris. Nothing
at all."

The small girl had sidled around and was now looking
intently at Simon's mirror. "Is that the Fairy Glass?" she
asked.

"Fairy Glass?"

"People say ..." She faltered and looked to her friends
for help.

Thin One jumped in. "People say that you are a fairy-
friend. That the fairies come when you call them with
your magic looking-glass."

Simon smiled again, but hesitantly. Bits of truth mixed
up with silliness. How did that happen? And who was
talking about him? It was odd to think about. "No, that's
not quite right. This was given to me by one of the Sithi,
yes, but they do not simply come when I call. Otherwise,
we would not have fought by ourselves against Duke
Fengbald, now would we?"

"Can your looking-glass grant wishes?" Curly-Hair
asked.

"No," Simon said firmly- "It's never granted any of
mine." He paused, remembering his rescue by Aditu in
Aldheorte's wintery depths. "I mean, that's not really
what it does," he finished. So he, too, was mixing truth
with lies. But how could he possibly explain the madness
of this last year so that they could understand it?

"We were praying that you would bring us allies. Sir
Seoman," the thin girl said seriously. "We were so fright-
ened."

As he looked at her pale face, he saw that she was tell-
ing the truth. Of course they had been upset—did that
mean that they could not be glad that they were alive?
That wasn't the same as being flittery, really. Should they
brood and mourn like Josua?

"I was frightened, too," he said. "We were very lucky."

There was a pause. The curly-haired girl arranged her
cloak, which had fallen open to reveal the soft skin of her

TO  GREEN   ANGEL  TOWER

539

throat. The weather was getting warmer, Simon realized.
He had been standing motionless here for some time, but
bad not shivered once. He looked up at the sky, as if hop-
ing to find some confirmation of winter's dwindling.

"Do you have a lady?" the curly-haired girl said sud-
denly.

"Do I have a what?" he asked, although he had heard
her perfectly well.

"A lady," she said, blushing furiously. "A sweet-
heart."

Simon waited for a moment before replying. "Not re-
ally." The three girls were staring at him raptly, expectant
as puppies, and he felt his own cheeks grow hot. "No, not
really." He had been clutching his Qanuc knife so long
that his fingers had begun to ache.

"Ah," said Curly-Hair. "Well, we should leave you to
your work. Sir Seoman." Her slender friend pulled at her
elbow, but she ignored her. "Will you be coming to the
bonfire?"

"Bonfire?" Simon furrowed his brow.

"The celebration- Well, and the mourning, too. In the
middle of the settlement." She pointed toward the massed
tents of New Gadrinsett. "Tomorrow night."

"I didn't know. Yes, I suppose I might." He smiled
again. These were really quite sensible young women
when you talked with them a while. "And thank you
again for the shin," he told Thin One.

She blinked rapidly. "Maybe you will wear it tomorrow
night."

After saying good-bye, the three girls turned and
walked off across the hillside, leaning their heads very
close together, wriggling and laughing. Simon felt a mo-
ment's indignation at the thought that they might be
laughing at him, but then he let it pass. They seemed to
like him, didn't they? That was just the way that girls
were, as far as he could tell.

He turned to his mirror once more, determined to finish
with his beard before the sun began to set. A bonfire, was
it... ? He wondered if he should wear his sword.

540

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Simon pondered his own words. It was true, of course,
that he had no lady love, as he supposed knights should—
even the ragtag son of knight he had become. Still, it was
hard not to think about Miriamele. How long had it been
since he had seen her? He counted the months on his
hand: Yuven, Anitui, Tiyagaris, Septander, Octander ...
almost half a year! It was easy to believe she had forgot-
ten him entirely by now.

But he had not forgotten her. There had been moments,
strange and almost frightening moments, when he had
been certain that she felt as drawn to him as he was to
her. Her eyes had seemed so large when she looked at
him, so careful to take him in, as though she memorized
his every line. Could it be only his imagination? Certainly
they had shared a wild and almost unbelievable adventure
together, and almost equally certainly, she considered him
a friend -.. but did she think anything more of him than

that?

The memory of how she had looked at Naglimund
swept over him. She had been dressed in her sky-blue
gown and had been suddenly almost terrible in her
completeness—so different from the ragged serving girl
who had slept on his shoulder. And yet, the very same girl
had been inside that blue dress. She had been almost hes-
itant when they had met in the castle courtyard—but was
it out of shame at the trick she had played him, or worry
that her resumption of station might have separated them?

He had seen her on a Hayholt tower top: her hair had
been like golden floss. Simon, a poor scullion, had
watched and felt like a mud-beetle catching a glimpse of
the sun. And her face, so alive, so quick to change, full of
anger and laughter, more mercurial and unpredictable
than that of any woman he had ever met ...

But it was fruitless to go on mooning this way, he told
himself. It was unlikely in the extreme that she even
thought of him as anything more than a friendly scullion,
like the servants' children with whom the nobility were
raised, but who they quickly forgot upon reaching adult-
hood. And of course, even if she did care for him at all,
there was no chance that anything could ever come of it.

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER                           541

That was Just the way of things, or at least so he had been
taught.

Still, he had been out in the world long enough now
and had seen enough oddities that the immutable facts of
life Rachel had taught him seemed much less believable.
How were common folk and those of royal blood differ-
ent, anyway? Josua was a kind man, a clever and earnest
man—Simon had little doubt that he would make a fine
king—but his brother Elias had proved to be a monster.
Could any peasant dragged from the barley fields do any
worse? What was so sacred about royal blood? And, now
that he thought about it, hadn't King John himself come
from a family of peasants—or as good as peasants?

A mad thought suddenly occurred to him: what if Elias
should be defeated, but Josua died? What if Miriamele
never returned? Then someone else must be king or
queen. Simon knew little of the affairs of the world—at
least those outside his own tangled journey of the past
half year. Were there others of royal blood who would
step forward and claim the Dragonbone Chair? That fel-
low in Nabban, Bigaris or whatever his name was? Who-
ever was the heir of Lluth, dead king of Hemystir? Or old
Isgrimnur, perhaps, if he should ever come back. He, at
least, Simon could respect.

But now the fleeting thought was glowing like a hot
coal. Why shouldn't he, Simon, be as likely as anyone
else? If the world were turned upside down, and if all
those with claims were gone when the dust settled, why
not a knight of Erkynland—one who had fought a dragon
just as John had, and who had been marked by the drag-
on's black blood? One who had been to the forbidden
world of the Sithi, and who was a friend of the trolls of
Yiqanuc? Then he would be fit for a princess or anyone
else!

Simon stared at his reflection, at the curl of white hair
like a dab of paint, at his long scar and his disconcert-
ingly fuzzy beard.

Look at me, he thought, and suddenly laughed aloud.
King Simon the Great! Might as well make Rachel the
Duchess of Nabban, or that monk Cadrach the Lector of

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Mother Church. Might as well wait for the stars to shine

in the middle of the day!

And who would want to be the king, anyway?
For that was it, after all; Simon saw little but pain in
store for whoever replaced Elias on the chair of bones.
Even if the Storm King could be defeated, which seemed
a possibility small to the point of nonexistence, the whole
of the land was in ruins, the people starved and frozen.
There would be no tournaments, no processions, no
sunlight gleaming on armor, not for many years.

No, he thought bitterly, the next king should be some-
one like Bamabas, the sexton of the Hayholt's chapel—
someone good at burying the dead.

He pushed the mirror back into the pocket of his cloak
and sat down on a rock to watch the sun slipping behind

the trees.

*

Vorzheva found her husband in Leavetaking House.
The long hall was empty but for Josua and the pale form
of Deomoth. The prince himself scarcely seemed like one
of the living, standing motionless as a statue beside the
altar that bore his friend's body.

"Josua?"
The prince turned slowly, as though waking from a

dream. "Yes, lady?"

"You are here too much. The day is ending."
He smiled. "I have only just returned. I was walking

with Simon, and I had some other duties."

Vorzheva shook her head. "You returned long ago,

even if you do not remember. You have been in this place

most of the afternoon."

Josua's smile faltered. "Have I?" He turned to look at
Deomoth. "I feel, I don't know, that it is wrong to leave
him alone. He was always looking after me."

She stepped forward and took his arm. "I know. Come,

walk with me."

"Very well." Josua reached out and touched the shroud

draped across Deomoth's chest.

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER

543

Leavetaking House had been little more than a shell
when Josua and his company had first come to Sesuad'ra.
The settlers had built shutters for the gaping windows and
stout wooden doors to make it a place where the business
of New Gadrinsett could take place in warmth and pri-
vacy. There was still something of the makeshift about it,
though—the crude contrivances of the latest residents
made an odd contrast when set against the graceful hand-
iwork of the Sithi. Josua let his fingers trail across a
bloom of carvings as Vorzheva led him toward one of the
doors in the back wall and out into the failing sunlight.

The garden's walls were crumbled, the stone walkways
broken and upended. A few hardy old rosebushes had sur-
vived winter's onslaught, and although it might be
months or years before they would bloom again, their
dark leaves and gray, thorny boughs looked strong and
vigorous. It was hard not to wonder how long they had
grown there, or who had planted them.

Vorzheva and Josua walked past the knotted trunk of a
huge pine tree which grew in the breach of one of the
walls. The dying sun, a blur of burning red, seemed hung
in its branches.

"Do you still think of her?'^ Vorzheva asked suddenly.

"What?" Josua's mind seemed to have been wandering.
"Who?"

"That other one. The one you loved, your brother's
wife."

The prince inclined his head. "Hylissa. No, not often.
There are far more important things to think on these
days." He put his arm about his wife's shoulders- "I have
a family now which needs my care."

Vorzheva looked at him suspiciously for a moment,
then nodded her head with quiet satisfaction. "Yes," she
said. "You do."

"And not just a family, but a whole people, it seems."

She made a quiet noise of despair. "You cannot be ev-
eryone's husband, everyone's father."

"Of course not. But I must be the prince, whether I
wish to or not."

They walked on for a while without talking, listening

544

Tad Williams

to the irregular music of a lone bird perched high in the
swaying branches. The wind was chilly, but the edge
seemed a little less than it had been in the days before,
which might have been why the bird sang.

Vorzheva pressed her head against Josua's shoulder so
that her black hair fluttered around his chin. "What will
we do now?" she asked. "Now the battle is ended?"

Josua led her toward a stone bench, fallen to shards at
one end, but still with much of its surface unbroken. They
brushed off a few melting spatters of snow and sat down.
"I do not know," he said. "I think it is time for another
Raed—a council. We have much to decide. I have many
doubts about what is the wisest course. We should not
wait long after ... after we have buried our fallen."

Vorzheva looked at him, surprised. "What do you
mean, Josua? Why such hurry to have this thing?"

The prince raised his hand and examined the lines on
his palm. "Because there is a possibility that if we do not
strike now, an important chance will be lost."

"Strike?" She seemed astounded. "Strike what? What
madness is this? We have lost one of every three! You
would take these few hundred against your brother!?"

"But we have won an important victory. The first any-
one has had against him since he began his mad cam-
paign. If we strike out now, while memory is fresh and
Elias is unaware of what has happened, our people here
will take heart; when others see we are moving, they will

join us, too."

Vorzheva stood, her eyes wide. She held an arm around
her middle as if to protect their unborn child. "No! Oh,
Josua, that is too stupid! I thought you were to wait at
least until the winter had passed! How can you go off to

fight now?"

"I never said I was going to do anything," he said. "I
have not decided yet—nor will I, until I have called a

Raed."

"Yes, you men will sit around and talk of the great bat-
tle you fought. Will the women be there?"

"Women?" He looked at her quizzically. "Geloe will be
a part of it."

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER                           545

"Oh, yes, Geloe," she said with scorn. "Because she is
called a 'wise woman.' That is the only sort of woman
you will listen to—one who has a name for it, like a fast
horse or a strong ox."

"What should we do—invite everyone from all of New
Gadrinselt?" He was growing annoyed. "That would be
foolish."

"No more foolish than listening to only men." She
stared at him for a moment, then visibly forced herself to
become calm. She took several breaths before speaking
again. "There is a story the women of the Stallion Clan
tell. It is about the bull who would not listen to his cows."

Josua waited. "Well," he said at last. "What happened
to him?"

Vorzheva scowled and moved away down the broken
path. "Go on as you are doing. You will find out."

Josua's expression seemed half-amusement, half-
displeasure. "Wait, Vorzheva." He rose and followed her.
"You are right to chide me. I should listen to what you
have to say. What happened to the bull?"

She looked him over carefully. "I will tell you some
other time. I am too angry now."

Josua took her hand and fell-into step beside her. The
path curled through the disarranged stones, bringing them
close to the tumbled blocks of the outer garden wall.
There was a noise of voices from beyond.

"Very well," she said abruptly. "The bull was too proud
to listen to his cows. When they told to him that a wolf
was stealing the calves, he did not believe, because he did
not see it himself. When all the calves were stolen, the
cows drove the bull away and found a new bull." Her
stare was defiant. "Then the wolves ate the old bull, since
he had no one to protect him while he slept."

Josua's laugh was harsh. "And is that a warning?"

She squeezed his arm. "Please, Josua. The people are
tired of the fighting. We make a home here." She pulled
him closer to the breach in the stone. From the far side
rose (he noise of the ragtag marketplace that had sprung
up in the shelter of Leavetaking House's outer walls. Sev-
eral dozen men, women, and children were bartering with

546

Tad Williams

old possessions carried out of their former homes and
new things gathered on and about Sesuad'ra. "See,"
Vorzheva said, "they make a new life. You told them they
fought for their home. How can you make them move

again?"
Josua stared at a group of bundled children playing tug-

o-war with a colorful rag. They were shrieking with
laughter and kicking up puffs of snow; nearby, someone's
mother was calling angrily for her child to come in out of
the wind. "But this is not their true home," he said qui-
etly. "We cannot stay here forever."

"Who is staying forever?" Vorzheva demanded. "Until
spring! Until our child is born!"

Josua shook his head. "But we may never have a
chance like this again." He turned away from the wall, his
face grave. "Besides, I owe it to Deomoth. He gave his
life, not for us to quietly disappear, but so that we could
pay back the wrongs my brother has done."

"Owe it to Deomoth!" Vorzheva sounded angry, but
her eyes were sad. "What a thing to say! Only a man
would say such a thing."

Josua turned and caught her up, pulling her toward
him. "I do love you. Lady. I only try to do what is right."
She averted her eyes. "I know. But ..."
"But you do not think I am making the best decision."
He nodded, stroking her hair. "I am listening to everyone,
Vorzheva, but the final word must be mine." He sighed
and held her for a while without speaking. "Merciful
Aedon, I would not wish this on anyone," he said at last.
"Vorzheva, promise me something."

"What?" Her voice was muffled in his cloak.
"I have changed my mind. If something happens to
me ..." He thought. "If something happens to me, take
our child away from this. Do not let anyone put him on a
throne, or use him as the rallying symbol for some army."

"Him?"
"Or her- Do not let our child be forced into this game

as I was."

Vorzheva shook her head fiercely. "No one will take
my baby away from me, not even your friends."

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER           547

"Good." He looked out through the blowing tendrils of
her hair. The sun had fallen behind Leavetaking House,
reddening the entire western sky. "That makes whatever
will come easier to bear."

A

Five days after the battle, the last of Sesuad'ra's dead
were buried—men and women of Erkynland, Rimmers-
gard, Hemystir and the Thrithings, of Yiqanuc and Nab-
ban, refugees from half a hundred places, all laid to rest
in the shallow earth on the summit of the Stone of Fare-
well. Prince Josua spoke carefully and seriously about
their suffering and sacrifice as his cloak billowed in the
winds that swirled around the hilltop. Father Strangyeard,
Freosel, and Binabik all rose in turn to say words of one
sort or another. The citizens of New Gadrinsett stood,
hard-faced, and listened.

Some of the graves had no markers, but most had some
small monument, a carved board or rough-chiseled piece
of stone that bore the name of the fallen one. After great
labors to hack into the icy ground, the Erkynguard had
buried their own dead in a mass grave beside the lake,
crowning it with a single slab of rock that bore the leg-
end: "Soldiers of Erkynland, killed in the Battle of
Stefflod Valley. Em Wulstes Duos" By God's will.

Only the fallen Thrithings mercenaries were un-
mourned and unmarked. Their living comrades dug a vast
barrow for them on the grasslands below Sesuad'ra—half
believing it would be their own, that Josua planned to ex-
ecute them. Instead, when the labor was finished they
found themselves escorted by armed men far out onto the
open lands and then set free. It was a terrible thing for a
Thrithings-man to lose his horse, but the surviving merce-
naries decided quickly that walking was better than dying.

So, at last, all the dead were buried and the ravens were
cheated of their holiday.

As solemn music played, vying with the harsh wind to
be heard, the thought came to many of those who watched
that although Sesuad'ra's defenders had won an improb-

548

Tad Williams

able and heroic victory, they had paid dearly for it. The
fact that they had defeated only the tiniest portion of the
forces arrayed against them, and had lost nearly half their
number in doing so, made the winter-shrouded hillcrest
seem an even colder and lonelier place.

*

Someone caught Simon's arm from behind. He turned
swiftly, tugging his arm loose, and raised it to strike.

"Here, lad, here, don't be so hasty-quick!" The old
jester cowered, hands held over his head.

"I'm sorry, Towser." Simon rearranged his cloak. The
bonfire was glowing in the near distance and he was im-
patient to be going. "I didn't know who it was."

"No offense taken, laddie." Towser swayed slightly.
"The thing is ... well, I was just wondering if I could
walk with you a way. Over to the celebration. I'm not as
steady on my feet as I was."

Not surprising, Simon thought: Towser's breath was
heavily scented with wine. Then he remembered what
Sangfugol had said and fought down his urge to hurry on.
"Of course." He extended a discreet arm for the old man
to lean on.

"Kind, lad, very kind. Simon, isn't it?" The old man
looked up at him, his shadowed face a puzzle of wrinkles.

"That's right." Simon smiled in the darkness. He had
reminded Towser of his name a dozen different times.

"You'll do well, you will," the old man said. They
moved toward the flickering light, walking slowly. "And
I've met them all."

Towser did not stay with him long once they reached
the celebration. The old jester quickly found a group of
drunken trolls and went off to reintroduce them to the
glories of Bull's Horn—and himself to the glories of
kangkang, Simon suspected. Simon wandered for a while
on the periphery of the gathering.

It was a true feast night, perhaps the first that Sesuad'ra
had seen. Fengbald's camp had proven to be groaningly

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER

549

full of stocks and stores, as though the late duke had
plundered all Erkynland to insure he would be as com-
fortable in the Thrithings as if he had remained at the
Hayhott. Josua had wisely made sure that most of the
food and other useful things were hidden away for later—
even if the company was to leave the Stone, it would not
be tomorrow—but a generous portion had been made
available for the celebration, so that tonight the hilltop
had a genuinely festive air, Freosel, in particular, had de-
rived no little pleasure from breaching Fengbald's casks,
draining off the first mug of Stanshire Dark himself with
as much pleasure as if it had been the duke's blood in-
stead of only his beer.

Wood, one of the other things not in short supply, had
been piled high in the center of the vast flat surface of the
Fire Garden. The bonfire was burning brightly, and most
of the people were gathered on the wide field of tiles.
Sangfugol and some of the other musical citizens of New
Gadrinsett were strolling here and there, playing for knots
of appreciative listeners. Some of the listeners were more
enthusiastic than others- Simon had to laugh as a particu-
larly sodden trio of celebrants insisted on joining the
harper in his rendition of *-'By Greenwade's Shore."
Sangfugol winced but gamely played on; Simon silently
congratulated the harper on his fortitude before wander-
ing away.

The night was chilly but clear, and the wind that had
bedeviled the hilltop during the burial rites was all but
gone. Simon, after pondering for a moment, decided that
considering the time of the year, the weather was actually
rather nice. Again he wondered if the Storm King's power
might somehow be slipping, but this time the thought was
followed by an even more worrisome question.

What if he's only gathering his strength? What if he's
going to reach out now and do what Fengbald couldn't?

That was not a line of thought Simon wished to pursue.
He shrugged and readjusted his sword belt.

The first cup of wine offered to him went down very
nicely, wanning his stomach and loosening his muscles.
He had been part of the small army put to work burying

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Tad Williams

the dead—a ghastly task made worse by the occasional
familiar face glimpsed beneath a mask of hoarfrost. Si-
mon and the others had worked like demons to breach the
stony ground, digging with whatever they could find—
swords, axes, limbs of fallen trees, but as difficult as it
had been to scrape in the frozen earth, the cold had
slowed putrefaction, making a horrible job just a little
more bearable. Still, Simon's sleep had been raddled by
nightmares the past two nights—endless visions of stiff-
ened bodies tumbling into ditches, bodies rigid as statues,
contorted figures that might have been carved by some
mad sculptor obsessed by pain and suffering.

War's rewards, Simon thought as he walked through
the noisy throng. And if Josua were to be successful, the
battles to come would make this look like an Yrmansol
dance. The corpses would be piled higher than Green An-
gel Tower.

The thought made him feel cold and sick. He went in

search of more wine.

The festival had a certain air of heedlessness, Simon
noted. Voices were too loud, laughter too swift, as though
those who talked and made merry were doing so for the
benefit of others more than themselves. With the wine
came fighting, too, which seemed to Simon as though it
should be the last thing anyone would desire. Still, he
passed more than a few clumps of people gathered around
a pair or more of swearing, shouting men, calling encour-
agement and mockery as the combatants rolled in the
mud. Those in the crowd who were not laughing looked

disturbed or unhappy.

They know we are not saved, Simon thought, regretting
his own mood on what should be a wonderful night. They
are happy to be alive, but they know the future may be

worse.

He wandered on, taking a drink when it was offered.
He stopped for a while near Leavetaking House to watch
Sludig and Hotvig wrestle—a friendlier kind of combat
than he had seen elsewhere. The northerner and the
Thrithings-man were stripped to the waist and grappling
fiercely, each trying to throw the other out of a circle of

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER

551

rope, but both men were laughing; when they stopped to
rest, they shared a wineskin. Simon called out a greeting
to them.

Feeling like a lonely seagull circling the mast of a plea-
sure boat, he walked on.

Simon was not sure what time it was, whether it was
just an hour or so after dark or approaching midnight.
Things had begun to grow a little blurry somewhere after
his half-dozenth drink of wine.

However, at this exact moment, time did not seem very
important. What did seem that way was the girl who
walked beside him, the light of the fading bonfire glinting
in her dark, wavy hair. She wasn't named Curly-Hair, but
Uica, as he had recently learned. She stumbled and he put
his arm around her, amazed at how warm a body could
feel, even through thick clothing.

"Where are we going?" she asked, then laughed. She
did not seem terribly worried about possible destinations.

"Walking," Simon replied. After a moment's thought
he decided he should make his plan more clear. "Walking
around."

The noise of the celebration was a dull roar behind
them, and for a moment Simon could almost imagine that
he was in the middle of the battle once more, on the fro-
zen lake, slick with blood....

His hackles rose. Why would he want to think about
something like that!? He made a noise of disgust.

"What?" Uica swayed, but her eyes were bright. She
had shared the wineskin Sangfugol had given to him. She
seemed to have a natural talent for holding her wine.

"Nothing," he replied gruffly. "Just thinking. About
the fighting. The battle. Fighting."

"It must have been ... horrible!" Her voice was full of
wonder. "We watched. Welma 'n' me. We were crying."

"Welmingyou?" Simon glared at her. Was she trying to
confuse him? "What does that mean?"

"Welma. I said 'Welma an' me.' My friend, the slender
one. You met her!" Uica squeezed his arm, amused by his
clever jest.

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"Oh." He reflected on the recent conversation. What
had they been talking about? Ah. The battle. "It was hor-
rible. Blood. People killed." He tried to Find some way to
sum up the totality of the experience, to let this young
woman know what he, Simon, had experienced. "Worse
than anything," he said heavily.

"Oh, Sir Seoman," she cried, and stopped, losing her
balance for a moment on the slippery ground. "You must
have been frightened!"

"Simon. Not Seoman—Simon." He considered what
she had said. "Little. A little." It was hard not to notice
her proximity. She had a very nice face, really, full-
cheeked and long-lashed. And her mouth. Why was it so
close, though?

He refocused his eyes and discovered that he was lean-
ing forward, toppling toward Uica like a felled tree. He
put his hands on her shoulders for balance, and was inter-
ested by how small she felt beneath his touch. "I'm going
to kiss you," he said suddenly.

"You shouldn't," Uica said, but closed her eyes and did
not move away.

He kept his own eyes open for fear of missing his mark
and tumbling to the snow-flecked ground. Her mouth was
strangely firm beneath his, but warm and soft as a blan-
keted bed on a winter's night. He let his lips stay there for
a moment, trying to remember if he had ever done this
before and if so, what to do next. Uica did not move, and
they stood in place, breathing air gently scented with
wine into each other's mouths.

Simon discovered soon enough that kissing was more
than Just standing lip to lip, and after a short while the
cold air, the horrors of battle, even the ruckus of the bon-
fire a short distance away had disappeared from his mind.
He stretched his arms around this wonderful creature and
pulled her close, enjoying the feeling of sweetly yielding
girl pressed against him, never wanting to do anything
else in his whole life, however long it might be.

"Ooh, Seoman," Uica said at last, pulling back to catch
her breath, "you could make a girl faint."

"Mmmm." Simon drew her back again, bending his

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553

neck so that he could nibble at her ear. If only she were
a little taller! "Sit down," he said. "I want to sit down."

They struggled along for a few joined steps, clumsy as
a crab, until Simon found a chunk of fallen masonry of
appropriate height. He wrapped his cloak around both of
them as they sat down, then pulled Uica close once more,
squeezing and kneading even as he continued to kiss her.
Her breath was warm against his face. She was soft in
some places, firm in others. What a wonderful world this
was!

"Ooh, Seoman." Her voice was muffled as she spoke
into his cheek. "Your beard, it scratches so!"

"Yes, it does, doesn't it?"

It took Simon a moment to realize that someone other
than himself had answered Uica. He looked up.

The figure standing before them was dressed all in
white—jacket, boots, and breeches. It had long hair that
streamed in the light breeze, a mocking smile, and up-
turned eyes no more human than those of a cat or a fox.

Uica stared for a moment, her mouth open. She let out
a tiny squeak of amazement and fear.

"Who. . . ?" She rose unsteadily from their seat.
"Seoman, who. -. ?"

"/ am a fairy woman," said Jiriki's sister, her voice
suddenly stony. "And you are a little mortal girl ... who
is kissing my husband-to-be! I think I shall have to do
something dreadful to you."

Uica gasped for breath and screamed in earnest this
time, pushing herself away from Simon so strongly that
he was almost toppled from the rock. Curly hair unbound
and flying behind her, she ran back toward the bonfire.

Simon stared after her stupidly for a moment, then
turned back to the Sitha-woman. "Aditu?"

She was watching the disappearing form of Uica.
"Greetings, Seoman." She spoke calmly, but with a hint
of amusement. "My brother sends his regards."

"What are you doing here?" Simon could not under-
stand what had just happened. He felt as though he had
fallen out of bed during a wonderful dream and landed on

554

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his head in a bear pit. "Merciful Aedon! And what do you
mean, 'husband-to-be'?!"

Aditu laughed, her teeth flashing. "I thought it would
be a good story to add to the other Tales of Seoman the
Bold. I have been haunting the shadows all evening and
have heard many people mention your name. You slay
dragons and wield fairy-weapons, so why not have a
fairy-wife?" She reached out a hand, enclosing his wrist
with cool, supple fingers. "Now come, we have much to
talk about. You can rub faces with that little mortal girl
some other time."

Simon followed, stunned, as Aditu led him back toward
the light of the bonfire. "Not after this I can't," he mum-
bled.

18

The Fox's Bargain

*

EoCtrir^S steep had been shallow and troubled, so he
woke instantly when Isom touched his shoulder.

"What is it?" He fumbled for his sword, fingers scrab-
bling through the damp leaves.

"Someone coming." The Rimmersman was tense, but
there was an odd look on his face. "I don't know," he
muttered. "You had better come."

Eolair rolled over and clambered to his feet, then
paused to buckle on his sword belt. The moon hung sol-
emnly above the Stagwood; from its position, Eolair
guessed that dawn could not ^e far away. There was
something odd in the air: the count could feel it already.
This forest the Hemystiri called Fiathcoille, which spread
in a contented clump a few leagues southeast of Nad
Mullach beside the river Baraillean, was a place he had
hunted every spring and fall as a young man, a spot he
knew like his own hall. When he had rolled himself in his
cloak and blanket to sleep, it had been familiar as an old
friend. Now, suddenly, it seemed different in a way he
could not understand.

The camp was stirring into wakefulness. Already most
of Ule's men were pulling on their boots. Their numbers
had almost tripled since he and Isom had found them—
there were quite a few masterless men wandering the
edges of the Frostmarch who were happy to join an orga-
nized band, regardless of its purpose—and Eolair doubted
that anything but a major force of arms could threaten
them.

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But what if Skali had received word of their presence?
They were a sizable company, but against an army like
Kaldskryke's they could not hope to be more than a brief

annoyance.

Isom stood just ahead at the forest fringe, beckoning.
Eolair moved toward him, trying to move as quietly as he
could, but even as he listened to the soft crunching of.his
own footfalls, he became aware of ... something else.

At first he thought it was the wind, wailing like a cho-
rus of spirits, but the trees around him were still, clumps
of soft snow balanced delicately at the ends of the __
branches. No, it was not the wind. The sound had a reg-
ular quality, rhythmic, even musical. It sounded, Eolair
thought, like ... singing.

"Brynioch!" he swore as he moved up beside Isorn.

"What is it?"

"The sentries heard that an hour gone," the duke's son
muttered. "How loud must it be, that we have not seen

them yet?"

Eolair shook his head. The snow-dappled plain of the
lower Inniscrich lay before them, pale and uneven as
rumpled silk. Men were moving up on either side, crawl-
ing to the edge of the trees to look out, until Eolair felt as
though he were surrounded by a crowd awaiting a royal
procession. But the anticipatory looks of the hard-faced
men around him were more than a little fearful. Many
sword-hilts were already clutched in damp palms.

The singing rose in pitch, then abruptly stopped. In its
wake, the sound of many hoofbeats echoed along the
Stagwood's fringe- Eolair, still wiping sleep from his
eyes, drew breath to say something to Isom- As it turned
out, he held that breath for a long time, and when he let
it go, it was only to suck in another.

They appeared from the east, as though they had come
out of northern Erkynland—or, Eolair thought distract-
edly, out of the depths of Aldheorte Forest. They were lit-
tle more than a shimmer of moonlight on metal at first, a
distant cloud of silvershine in the darkness. Hoofbeats
rumbled like heavy rain on a wooden roof, then a horn
winded, an oddly haunting note that pierced the night,

TO  GREEN   ANGEL  TOWER

557

and suddenly they seemed almost to burst into full view.
One of Ule's men went mad when he saw them. He ran
shouting into the forest, slapping at his head as Uiough it
burned, and was not seen again by any of his fellows.

Although none of the others were so badly afflicted, no
one who passed that night in the Stagwood was ever after
the same, nor could any of them quite say why. Even
Eolair was stunned, Eolair who had traveled most of the
length and breadth of Osten Ard, who had seen sights that
reduced most men to tongue-tied awe. But even the
worldly count would never be able to explain just how it
had felt to watch the Sithi ride.

As the wild company thundered past, me very quality
of the moonlight seemed to change. The air became pale
and crystalline; objects seemed to glitter at the edges, as
though every tree and man and blade of grass was limned
in diamond. The Sithi rolled past like a great ocean wave
capped with gleaming spear-points. Their faces were hard
and fierce and beautiful as the faces of hunting hawks,
and their hair streamed in the wind of their passage. The
immortals' steeds seemed to race more swiftly than any
horses could run, but they moved in a way that seemed fit
only for dreams, pace smooth as melting honey, hooves
carving the darkness into pale streaks of fire.

Within moments the bright company had dwindled to a
dark mass vanishing in the west, their hoofbeals a fading
murmur. They left behind them silence and, in some of
the watchers, tears.

"The Fair Ones . -." Eolair breathed at last. His own
voice seemed as thick and hoarse as the croaking of a
frog.

"The ... Sithi?" Isorn shook his head as though he had
been struck a blow. "But... but why? Where are they go-
ing?"

And suddenly Eolair knew. "The Fox's Bargain," he
said, and laughed. His heart felt buoyant in his chest.

"What do you mean?" Isom watched in bewilderment
as the Count of Nad Mullach turned and headed back into
the forest.

"An old song," he called back- "The Fox's Bargain!"

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Tad Williams

He laughed again and sang, feeling the words leap out as
though they sought the night air of their own accord.

" 'We never forget,' the Fair Ones said,
'Though Time may ancient run.
You will hear our horns beneath the moon,
You will see our spears shine in the sun ..,' "

"I do not understand!" Isom cried-

"Never mind!" Eolair was almost out of sight, moving
rapidly toward the camp. "Get the men! We must ride to
Hemysadharc!"

As if to echo him, a silvery horn sounded in the distance-

^

"It is an old song of our people," Eolair called across
to Isom. Although they had been riding at speed since be-
fore the sun had risen, there was no sign of the Sithi but
for a trample of hoofprints on the snowy grass, hoofprints
already fading as the grass sprang back and the snow liq-
uefied in the morning's warmth. "It tells of the promise
the Fair Ones made to the Red Fox—Prince Sinnach—
before the battle of Ach Samrath: they swore they would
never forget the faithfulness of Hemystir."

"So you think they are riding against Skali?"

"Who can say? But look where they are bound!" The
count stood in the saddle and pointed out across the broad
grasslands at the tracks disappearing into the west. "True
as an arrow's flight to the Taig!"

"Even if that is where they are going, we cannot ride
all the way there at this pace," said Isom. "The horses are
flagging already, and we have only traveled a few

leagues."

Eolair looked around. The company was beginning to
slide apart, some of the riders falling well back. "Perhaps.
But, Bagba bite me, if they are going to Hemysadharc, I
want to be there!"

Isorn grinned, his wide face crinkling. "Not unless

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

559

your fairy-folk left us some of their fairy-horses, with
wings on their feet. But we will get there eventually."

The count shook his head, but pulled gently back on
the reins, slowing his gray horse to a canter. "True. We'll
do no one any good if we kill our mounts."

"Or ourselves." Isom waved his hand to slow the rest
of the company.

They stopped for a midday meal. Eolair balanced his
impatience against what he knew to be the wisdom of
having his troop at least somewhat rested; if there was to
be fighting, men who were ready to drop in their tracks
and horses who could not walk another step would make
a very indifferent contribution.

After an hour's rest they were back in the saddle again,
but Eolair now kept the pace more reasonable. By (he
time darkness arrived, they had crossed the Inniscrich to
the outskirts of the territory of Hemysadharc, although
they were still several hours' ride from the Taig. They
had passed some encampments that Eolair guessed had
belonged to Skali's men. All were deserted, but signs in-
dicated that the tenancy had been recent; in one of them
the cookfires still smoldered. The count wondered if the
Rimmersmen had fled before the onrushing Sithi, or had
suffered some other, stranger fate.

At Isom's insistence, Eolair finally brought the com-
pany to a halt near Ballacym, a walled town on a low hill-
side that looked back over the western edge of the
Inniscrich. Much of the town had been destroyed during
Lluth's losing battle with Skali nearly a year before, but
enough of the walls remained to offer some shelter.

"We do not want to arrive in the midst of any struggle at
night," Isom said as they rode through the shattered gates.
"Even if you are correct and your fairy-folk have come to
fight for Hemystir, how will they know the difference be-
tween the right and wrong sort of mortal in the dark?"

Eolair was not pleased, but he could not dispute the
wisdom of Isom's words. As he had already known, there
was little his small band could do against a large army
like Skali's, but the thought of having to wait was still
infuriating. His heart had sung to match the Sithi them-

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Tad Williams

selves as he had watched them ride. To do something—to
finally strike a blow at those who had devastated his land!
The idea had pushed at him like a strong wind. And now
he must wait until morning.

Eolair drank more than his usual modest portion of
wine that night, though it was in short supply, then lay
down early, uninterested in talking about what they all
had seen and what they might be riding toward. He knew
that even with the wine-fumes in his head, sleep would be
a long time coming. It was.

"I do not like this," Ule Frekkeson growled, drawing
back on his reins. "Where have they gone? And, by the
Holy Aedon, what has happened here?"

The streets of Hemysadharc were strangely deserted,
Eolair knew that few of his people had remained after
Skah's conquest, but even if all the Rimmersmen had
been driven out by the Sithi—which seemed impossible,
since scarcely more than a day had passed since the Fair
Ones rode past, half a hundred leagues west—there
should still be at least a few of the native Hemystir-folk.

"I do not like it any more than you do," the count re-
plied, "but I cannot imagine Skali's entire army would be
hiding in ambush for our seven or eight score."

"Eolair is right." Isom shaded his eyes. The weather
was still cold, but the sun was surprisingly bright. "Let's
ride in and take our chances."

Ule bit back a rejoinder, then shrugged. The trio rode
in through the crude gates the Rimmersmen had built; the
men followed, talking among themselves.

It was disturbing enough to see a wall around
Hemysadharc. Never in Eolair's memory had there been
one, and even the ancient wall that circled the Taig re-
mained only out of the Hemystiri reverence for past days.
Most of the older wall had collapsed long ago, so that the
remaining sections stood vastly separated, like the few re-
maining teeth in an old man's jaw. But this rough yet
sturdy barrier around the innermost section of the city had
been built very recently.

What was Skali afraid of? Eolair wondered. The re-

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

561

maining Hemystiri, a beaten people? Or perhaps it was
his own ally, the High King Elias, that he did not trust.

Disturbing as it was to see the new wall, it was even
more so to see what had happened to it. The timbers were
scorched and blackened as though they had been lightning-
struck, and a section wide enough for a score of riders to
pass through abreast had been blasted away entirely. A few
wisps of smoke still curled above the wreckage.

The mystery of what had happened to Hemysadharc's
inhabitants was partially solved as Eolair's company
swung out onto the wide road that had once been named
Tethtain's Way. That name had passed not long after the
great Hemystiri King, and people usually called it the
Taig Road, for it led directly up the hill to the great hall.
Now, as the company entered the muddy thoroughfare,
they saw a great crowd of people standing at the summit
of the hill, clustered around the Taig like sheep at a salt
lick. Curious but still careful, Eolair and the others rode
forward.

When Eolair saw that most of the crowd swarming on
the lower slopes of Hem's Hill seemed to be Hemystiri,
his heart rose. When a few of the outermost people
turned, alarmed at the sight of-a troop of mounted and
armored men, he hastened to reassure them.

"People of Hemysadharc!" he cried, standing in his
stirrups. Several more members of the crowd turned at the
sound of his voice. "I am Eolair, Count of Nad Mullach.
These men are my friends and will do you no harm."

The reaction was surprising. While several of those
nearest cheered and waved to him, they seemed little
moved. After staring for a moment, they turned their at-
tention back to the hilltop again, despite the fact that none
of them had a better vantage point than mounted Eolair,
and he himself could see nothing before him but the
stretching crowd.

Isorn was puzzled, too. "What are you doing here?" he
shouted to the people standing nearby. "Where is Skali?"

Several shook their heads as though they did not under-
stand, and several others made joking remarks about
Skali being headed back to Rimmersgard, but no one

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Tad Williams

seemed inclined to waste too much time or energy en-
lightening the duke's son and his companions.

Eolair cursed quietly and spurred his horse forward,
letting the beast make room for him. Although no one ac-
tively contested his passage, it was slow going to push
through the crush of people, and no short while before
they passed between two of the standing remnants .of
ruined fortress wall and onto the ancient grounds of the
Taig. Eolair squinted, then whistled with astonishment.

"Bagba bite me," he said, and laughed, although he
could not have said why.

The Taig and its outbuildings still stood on the hilltop,
solid and impressive, but now all the fields across the
summit of Hem's Hill were covered with wildly colorful
tents. They were every shade imaginable and a hundred
different sizes and shapes; someone might have emptied a
giant basket of quilt-squares across the snowy grass.
What had been the capital of the Hemystiri nation, the
royal seat, had suddenly become a village constructed by
wild, magical children.

Eolair could see movement among the tents—slender
shapes in garb as colorful as the newly-erected dwellings-
He spurred forward, passing the last of the Hemystiri on-
lookers as he climbed the hill. These stared hungrily at
the bright cloth and the strange visitors, but seemed reluc-
tant to cross the last open space and draw too close. Many
watched the count and his company with something like

envy.

As they rode into the wind-billowed city of tents, a
lone figure came toward them. Eolair reined up, prepared
for anything, but was astonished to find that the one who
came forward to greet them was Craobhan, the royal fam-
ily's most elderly but also most loyal advisor. The old
man seemed almost thunderstruck to see them; he stared
at Eolair for a long time without speaking, but at last tears
came to his eyes and he opened his arms wide.

"Count Eolair! Mircha's wet blessing upon us, it's
good to see you."

The count scrambled down from his horse and em-

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER            563

braced the counselor. "And you, Craobhan, and you.
What has happened here?"

"Ha! More than I can tell you standing in the wind."
The old man chuckled strangely. He seemed genuinely
befuddled, a state in which Eolair had never thought to
find him. "By all the gods, more than I can tell you.
Come to the Taig. Come in and have something—food,
drink."

"Where is Maegwin? Is she well?"

Craobhan looked up, his watery gaze suddenly in-
tent. "She is alive and happy," he said. "But come. Come
see ... well, as I said, more than I can tell you now." The
old man took his elbow and tugged.

Eolair turned and waved to the others. "Isom, Ule,
come!" He patted Craobhan's shoulder. "Can our men
have something to eat?"

Beyond worrying, Craobhan waved his bony hand.
"Somewhere. Some of the people from the town have
probably hoarded a few things. There's much to do,
though, Eolair, much to do. Hardly know where to start."

"But what's happened? Did the Sithi drive off Skali?"

Craobhan pulled at his arm, leading him toward the
great hall.

The Count of Nad Mullach got scarcely more than a
glance at the score or so of Sithi who were on the hilltop.
Those he saw seemed absorbed in the task of building
their camp, and did not even look up as Eolair and the
others walked by, but even from a distance he could see
the strangeness of them, their odd but graceful motions,
their quiet serenity. Although in some places more than a
few Sithi were working together, men and women both,
they uttered no words that he could hear, going about
their tasks with a smooth uniformity of purpose that was
somehow as unsettling as their alien faces and move-
ments.

As they drew closer to the Taig, it was easy to see the
marks of Skali's occupation. The carefully cultivated gar-
dens had been dug up, the stone pathways torn apart.
Eolair cursed Sharp-nose and his barbarians, then won-
dered again what had happened to the occupiers-

Tad Williams

Inside the Taig's great doors things were no different.
The walls had been denuded of tapestries, relics had been
stolen from their niches, and the floors were scarred with
the ruts of countless booted feet. The Hall of Carvings,
where King Lluth had held court, was in better
condition—Eolair guessed it had been Thane Skali's
seat—but still there were signs that the northern reavers
had not been overly reverent- Many scores of arrows bris-
tled in the high-arched ceilings, where the hanging
wooden carvings had proven tempting targets for
Kaldskryke's winter-bound soldiers.

Craobhan, who seemed to wish to avoid talking, seated
them in the hall and went to find something to drink.

"What do you suppose has happened, Eolair?" Isom
shook his head. "It makes me feel ashamed to be a
Rimmersman when I see what Skali and his cutthroats
have done to the Taig." Beside him, Ule was peering sus-
piciously into the corners of the hall, as though
Kaldskrykemen might be hiding there.

"You have nothing to be ashamed of," said Eolair.
"They did not do this because they were Rimmersmen,
but because they were in someone else's country in a bad
time. Hernystiri or Nabbanai or Erkynlanders might do
the same."

Isom was not mollified. "It is wrong. When my father
has his dukedom back, we will see that the damage is re-
paired."

The count smiled, "If we all survive and this is the
worst we have to deal with, then I will gladly sell my
own home at Nad Mullach stone by stone to make it right
again. No, this will be mild, I'm afraid."

"I fear you are right, Eolair." Isom frowned. "God
knows what has happened in Elvritshalla since we were
driven out- And after the terrible winter, too."

They were interrupted by Craobhan, who tottered back
in with a young Hernystiri woman who carried four large
hammered silver tankards decorated with the leaping stag

of the royal house.

"Might as well use the best," Craobhan said with a
crooked smile. "Who's to say no in these strange days?"

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER            565

"Where is Maegwin?" Eolair's apprehension had
grown when she had not appeared to greet them.

"Sleeping." Again Craobhan made a dismissive ges-
ture- "I'll take you when you've finished. Drink up."

Eolair stood. "Forgive me, old friend, but I'd like to
see her now. I'll be better able to enjoy my beer."

The old man shrugged. "In her old room. There's a
woman seeing to her." He seemed more interested in his
tankard than in the fate of the king's only living child-

The count looked at him for a moment- What had hap-
pened to the Craobhan he knew? The old man seemed
muddle-headed, as though he'd been struck with a club.

There were far too many other things that needed wor-
rying over. Eolair walked out of the hall, leaving the oth-
ers to drink and stare up at the shattered carvings.

Maegwin was indeed sleeping. The wild-haired woman
who sat beside the bed looked slightly familiar, but Eolair
gave her scarcely more than a glance before he kneeled
down and took Maegwin's hand. A wet cloth lay across
her forehead.

"Has she been wounded?" There seemed to be some-
thing Craobhan was keeping from him—perhaps she was
badly hurt.

"Yes," the woman said. "But it was a glancing blow
only, and she has already recovered." The woman lifted
the cloth to show Eolair the bruise on Maegwin's pale
brow. "She is merely resting now. It has been a great
day."

Eolair turned sharply at the sound of her voice. She
looked as distracted as Craobhan, her eyes wide and fey,
her mouth twitching-

Has everyone here gone mad? he wondered.

Maegwin stirred at the sound of his voice. As he turned
back, her eyes fluttered open, closed again, then opened
once more and stayed that way.

"'Eolair... ?" Her voice was groggy with sleep. She
smiled like a young child, with no trace of the fretfulness
he had seen the last time they had spoken. "Is that you,
truly? Or just another dream. -.."

"It is me. Lady." He squeezed her hand again. She

566

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looked little different at that moment than when she had
been a girl and he had first felt his heart stirring with in-
terest. How could he have ever been angry with her, no
matter what she had said or done?

Maegwin tried to sit up. Her sorrel hair was disar-
ranged, her eyes still heavy-lidded. She seemed to have
been put to bed fully dressed; only her feet, which pro-
truded from beneath the blanket, were bare. "Did ... did
you see them?"

"Did I see who... ?" he asked gently, although he felt
sure he knew. Her answer, though, surprised him.

'The gods, silly man. Did you see the gods? They were
so beautiful...."

"The ... gods?"

"I made them come," she said, and smiled sleepily.
"They came for me...." She let her head fall back into
the pillow and closed her eyes. "For me," she murmured.

"She needs sleep. Count Eolair," me woman said from
behind him. There was something peremptory in her
voice that lifted Eolair's hackles.

"What is she talking about, the gods?" he demanded.

"Does she mean the Sithi?"

The woman smiled, a smugly knowing smile. "She

means what she says."

Eolair stood, holding back his anger. There was much
to discover here. He would bide his time. "Take good
care of Princess Maegwin," he said as he moved toward
the door. It was more of an order than a request. The
woman nodded.

Musing, Eolair had just re-entered the Hall of Carvings
when there was a clatter of boots at the front doors be-
hind him. He stopped and turned, his hand reflexively
dropping to his sword-hilt. A few paces away, Isom and
husky Ule also rose, alarm plain on their faces.

The figure that appeared in the door of the hall was tall
but not overly so, dressed in blue armor that, strangely,
had the look of painted wood—but the armor, an intricate
collection of plates held together by shiny red cords, was
not the strangest thing about him. His hair was white as
a snow-drift; bound in a blue scarf, it fell past his shoul-

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER            567

ders. He was slender as a young birch tree, and despite
the color of his hair, looked to be scarcely into his man-
hood, insofar as Eolair could read a face so angular, so
different from a human face. The stranger's upturned eyes
were golden, bright as noon sun reflected in a forest
pond.

Surprised into immobility, Eolair stared. It was as
though some creature out of elder days stood before him,
one of his grandmother's stories appearing in flesh and
bone. He had expected to meet the Sithi, but he was no
more prepared than someone told about a deep canyon
could be when they suddenly discovered they were stand-
ing on its rim.

When the count had stood frozen for some seconds, the
newcomer took a step backward. "Forgive me." The
stranger made an oddly-articulated bow, sweeping his
long-fingered hand past his knees, but although there was
something light in his movements, there was no mockery.
"I forget my manners in the heat of this memorable day.
May I enter here?"

"Who ... who are you?" Eolair asked, startled out of
his normal courtesy. "Yes, come in."

The stranger did not seem offended. "1 am Jiriki
i-Sa'onserei. At this moment I speak for the Zida'ya. We
have come to repay our debt to Prince Sinnach of
Hemystir." After this formal speech, he suddenly flashed
a cheerfully feral grin. "And who are you?"

Eolair hastily introduced himself and his companions.
Isorn was staring, fascinated, and Ule was pale and unset-
tled- Old Craobhan wore an odd, mocking smile.

"Good," Jiriki said when he had finished. 'This is very
good. I have heard your name mentioned today. Count
Eolair. We have much to talk about. But first, who is the
master here? I understand that the king is dead."

Eolair looked dazedly to Craobhan. "Inahwen?"

"The king's wife is still up in the caves in the
Grianspog." Craobhan wheezed with what might have
been laughter. "Wouldn't come down with the rest of us.
I thought she was being sensible at the time. Then again,
perhaps she was."

568

Tad Williams

"And Maegwin, the king's daughter, is asleep." Eolair
shrugged. "I suppose then I am the one with whom you
must speak, at least for the present."

"Would you be kind enough to come with me to our
camp? Or would you rather we came here to talk?"

Eolair was not sure exactly who "we" might be, but he
knew he would never forgive himself if he did not expe-
rience this moment to its fullest. Maegwin, in any case,
obviously needed her rest, which would not be best ac-
complished with the Taig full of men and Sithi.

"We will be pleased to accompany you, Jiriki
i-Sa'onserei," the count said.

"Jiriki, if it is acceptable." The Sitha stood waiting-
Eolair and his companions walked with him out the
Taig's front doors. The tents billowed before them like a
field of oversized wildflowers. "Do you mind my ask-
ing," Eolair ventured, "what happened to the wall Skali
built around the city?"

Jiriki seemed to ponder for a moment. "Ah. That," he
said at last, and smiled, "I think you probably are speak-
ing of the handiwork of my mother, Likimeya. We were
in a hurry. The wall was in our way."

"Then I hope / am never in her way," Isom said ear-
nestly.

"As long as you do not come between my mother and
the honor of Year-Dancing House," said Jiriki, "you need

not worry."

They continued across the wet grass. "You mentioned
the bargain with Sinnach," the count said- "If you can de-
feat Skali in a day ... well, forgive me, Jiriki, but how
was the battle at Ach Samrath ever lost?"

"First, we have not quite defeated this Skali. He and
many of his men have fled into the hills and out onto the
Frostmarch, so there is work still to be done. But your
question is a good one." The Sitha's eyes narrowed as he
considered. "I think we are, in some ways, a different
people from what we were five centuries gone. Many of
us were not born then, and we children of the Exile are
not as cautious as our elders- Also, we feared iron in
those days, before we learned how to protect ourselves

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER                           569

from it." He smiled, that same fierce cat-grin, but then his
face grew somber- He brushed a strand of his pale hair
from his eyes. "And these men. Count Eolair, these
Rimmersmen here, they were not prepared for us. Sur-
prise was on our side. But in the battles ahead—and there
will be many, I think—no one will be so unprepared.
Then it will be like Ereb Irigu all over again—what you
men call 'the Knock.' There will be much killing, I fear
... and my people can afford it even less than yours."

As he spoke, the wind that rippled the tents changed di-
rection, swinging around until it blew from the North. It
was suddenly much colder on Hern's Hill.

A

Elias, High King of all Osten Ard, staggered like a
drunkard. As he made his way across the Inner Bailey
courtyard he lurched from one shadowy spot to another as
though the direct light of the sun made him ill. even
though it was a gray, cold day and the sun itself, even at
noon, was invisible behind a choke of clouds. The
Hayholt's -chapel dome loomed behind him, strangely
asymmetrical; a mass of dirty -snow, long uncleared, had
dimpled several of the leaded panes inward so that the
great dome looked like an old, rumpled felt hat.

Those few shivering peasants who were compelled to
live within the Hayholt's walls and tend the castle's crum-
bling facilities seldom left their quarters unless forced by
duty, which usually appeared in the form of a Thrithings-
man overseer, whose commands were upheld by the pos-
sibility of sudden and violent retribution- Even the
remainder of the king's army now barracked itself in the
fields outside Erchester. The story given out was that
the king was unwell and wished his peace, but it was
commonly whispered that the king was mad, that his cas-
tle was haunted. As a result, only a handful of people
were creeping about the Inner Bailey this gray, murky af-
ternoon, and of those few—a soldier bearing a message
for the Lord Constable, a pair of fearful rustics carting a
wagon full of barrels away from Pryrates' chambers—not

570

Tad Williams

a one watched Ellas' uneven passage for more than a mo-
ment before looking away. Not only would it be danger-
ous, possibly even fatal, to be caught staring at the king
in his infirmity, but there was something so dreadfully
wrong in his stiff-legged gait, some quality so terrifyingly
unnatural, that those who saw him felt compelled to turn
aside and furtively make the sign of the Tree before their

breasts.

Hjeldin's Tower was gray and squat. With the red win-
dows in its upper story gleaming dully, it might have been
some ruby-eyed pagan god of the Nascadu wastes. Elias
came to a stop before the heavy oak doors, which were
three ells high and painted an unglossy black, studded
with bronze hinges going splotchily green. On either side
of the entrance stood a figure hooded and robed in a black
even darker and flatter than the door. Each bore a lance of
strange, filigreed design, a fantastic weave of curlicues
and whorls, sharp as a barber's razor.

The king swayed in place, staring at the twin appari-
tions. It was clear that the Noms filled him with unease.
He moved another step closer to the door. Although nei-
ther of the sentries moved, and their faces were invisible
in the depths of their hoods, they seemed to become sud-
denly more intent, like spiders feeling the first trembling
steps of a fly on the outskirts of a web.

"Well?" Elias said at last, his voice surprisingly loud.
"Are you going to open the damned door for me?"
The Norns did not reply. They did not move.
"Blast you to hell, what ails you?!" he growled. "Don't
you know me, you miserable creatures? I'm the king!
Now open the door!" He took a sudden step forward- One
of the Noms allowed his lance to sag a handspan into the
doorway. Elias stopped and leaned back as though the
point had been waved in his face.

"So this is the game, is it?" His pale face had begun to
take on a gleam of madness. "This is the game? In my
own house, eh?" He began to rock back and forth on his
heels as though preparing to fling himself toward the
door. One of his hands slithered down to clutch at the
double-guarded sword which hung at his belt.

TO  GREEN   ANGEL TOWER

571

The sentry turned slowly and thumped twice on the
heavy doors with the butt of his lance. After a moment's
pause, he banged three more times before resuming his
settled stance.

As Elias stood staring, a raven screeched on one of the
tower's parapets. After what seemed like only a few
heartbeats, the door grated open and Pryrates stood in the
gap, blinking.

"Elias!" he said. "Your Majesty! You honor me!"

The king's lip curled. His hand was still tightening and
loosening on Sorrow's hilt. "I don't honor you at all,
priest. I came to talk to you—and / am dishonored."

"Dishonored? How?" Pryrates' face was full of
shocked concern, but there was an unmistakable trace of
mirth as well, as though he played mocking games with a
child. "Tell me what has happened and what I can do to
make it up to you, my king."

"These ... things wouldn't open the door." Elias jerked
his hand toward the silent warders. "When I tried to do it
myself, one of them blocked my path."

Pryrates shook his head, then turned and conversed
with the Noms in their own musical speech, which he
seemed to speak well if somewhat haltingly. He faced the
king again. "Please do not blame them. Highness, or even
me. You see, some of the things I do here in the pursuit
of knowledge can be hazardous. As I told you before, I
fear that someone coming in suddenly might find himself
endangered. You, my king, are the most important man in
the world. Therefore I have asked that no one be allowed
to walk in until I am here to escort them." Pryrates
smiled, an unmodified baring of teeth that would have
seemed appropriate on the face of an eel. "Please under-
stand that it was for your safety. King Elias."

The king looked at him for a moment, then peered at
the two sentries; they had returned to their positions and
were stiff as statues once more. "I thought you were us-
ing mercenaries to stand guard. I thought these things
didn't like the daylight."

"It does not harm them," said Pryrates. "It is just that
after several score centuries living in the great mountain

572

Tad Williams

Stonnspike, they prefer shade to sun." He winked, as
though over the foibles of some eccentric relative. "But I
am at an important point in my studies, now—our studies,
Majesty—and thought they would be better warders."

"Enough of this," Elias said impatiently. "Are you go-
ing to let me in? I came here to talk to you. It can't wait."

"Of course, of course," Pryrates assured him, but the
priest seemed suddenly distracted. "I always look forward
to speaking with you, my king. Perhaps you would prefer
it if I came to your apartments... ?"

"Damn it, priest, let me in. You don't make a king
stand on the doorstep, curse you!"

Pryrates shrugged and bowed. "Of course not, sire." He
stepped aside, extending his arm toward the staircase.
"Come up to my chambers, please."

Inside the great doors, in the high-ceilinged anteroom,
a single torch burned fitfully. The comers were full of
shadows that leaned and stretched as though struggling to
free themselves. Pryrates did not pause, but went immedi-
ately up the narrow staircase. "Let me go ahead and make
sure things are ready for you. Majesty," he called back,
his voice echoing in the stairwell.

Elias stopped on the second landing to catch his breath.
"Stairs," he said direly. "Too many stairs."

The door to the chamber was open, and the light of
several torches spilled out into the passageway. As he en-
tered, the king looked up briefly at the windows, which
were masked by long draperies. The priest, who was clos-
ing the lid of a large chest on what seemed to be a pile of
books, turned and smiled. "Welcome, my king. You have
not favored me with a visit here in some time."

"You have not invited me. Where can I sit down—I am

dying."

"No, my lord, not dying," Pryrates said cheerfully.
"The opposite, if anything—you are being reborn. But
you have been very sick of late, it's true- Forgive me.
Here, take my chair." He ushered Elias to the high-backed
chair; it was innocent of any decorations or carvings, yet
somehow carried an air of great antiquity. "Would you
like some of your soothing drink? I see Hengfisk has not

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER                           573

accompanied you, but I could arrange to have some
made." He turned and clapped his hands. "Munshazou!"
he called.

"The monk is not here because I have knocked in his
head, or near to," Elias growled, shifting uncomfortably
on the hard seat. "If I never see his pop-eyed face again,
I will be a happy man." He coughed, his fever-bright eyes
blinking closed. At this moment, he did not look in the
least like a happy man.

"He caused you some trouble? I am so unhappy to hear
that, my king. Perhaps you should tell me what happened,
and I will see that he is ... dealt with. I am your servant,
after all."

"Yes," Elias said dryly. "You are." He made a noise in
his throat and shifted again, trying to find a better posi-
tion.

There was a discreet cough from the doorway. A small
dark-haired woman stood there. She did not look particu-
larly aged, but her sallow face was lined with deep wrin-
kles. A mark of some kind—it might have been a letter
from some foreign script—was scribed on her forehead
above her nose. She moved ever so slightly as she stood,
weaving in a slow, circular motion so that the hem of her
shapeless dress brushed against the floor and the tiny
bone-colored charms she wore at waist and neck tinkled
gently.

"Munshazou," Pryrates said to Elias, "my servant from
Naraxi, from my house there." He told the dark woman:

"Bring something the king can drink. And for me—no, I
need nothing. Go now."

She turned with a rattle of ivory and was gone- "I apol-
ogize for the interruption," said the alchemist. "You were
telling me of your problem with Hengfisk."

"Don't worry about the monk. He is nothing. 1 just
woke suddenly and found him standing over me, staring.
Standing over my bed!" Remembering, the king shook
himself like a wet dog. "God, but he has a face only a
mother could bear. And that cursed smile always ..."
Elias shook his head. "I struck him—gave him my fist.
Knocked him right across the bedchamber." He laughed

574

Tad Williams

and then coughed. 'Teach him to come spying on me
while I sleep. I need my sleep. I've been getting precious

little-..."

"Is that why you came to me. Lord?" Pryrates asked.
"For your sleep? I could perhaps make something for
you—there is a sort of wax I have that you could bum in
a dish by your bedside...."

"No!" Elias said angrily. "And it's not the monk, ei-
ther. I came to you because I had a dream!"

Pryrates looked at him carefully. The patch of skin
above his eye—a spot where others had eyebrows—rose
in a questioning look. "A dream, lord? Of course, if that
is what you wish to speak with me about ..."

"Not that sort of dream, damn you! You know what
kind I mean. I had a dream!"

"Ah." The priest nodded. "And it disturbed you."
"Yes it bloody well did, by the Sacred Tree!" The king
winced and laid his hand on his chest, then burst into an-
other round of wracking coughs. "I saw the Sithi riding!
The Dawn Children! They were riding to Hemystir!"

There was a faint clicking noise from the door.
Munshazou had reappeared, bearing a tray on which
stood a tall goblet glazed in a deep rust-red. It steamed.
"Very good." Pryrates strode forward to take it from
the woman's hand. Her small, pale eyes watched him, but
her face remained expressionless- "You may go now," he
told her. "Here, Majesty, drink this. It will help your

clouded chest."

Elias took the goblet suspiciously and sipped. "It tastes

like the same swill you always give me."

"There are ... similarities." Pryrates moved back to his
position near the trunk full of books. "Remember, my
king, you have special needs."

Elias took another swallow. "I saw the immortals—the
Sithi. They were riding against Skali." He looked up from
; his cup to fix his green gaze on Pryrates. "Is it true?"
'   "Things seen in dreams are not always wholly true or
wholly false ..." Pryrates began.

"God damn you to the blackest circles of hell'" Elias
shouted, half-rising from the chair. "Is it true?!"

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER

575

Pryrates bowed his hairless head- "The Sithi have left
their home in the fastness of the forest."

Elias' green eyes glittered dangerously. "And Skali?"

Pryrates moved slowly toward the door, as though pre-
paring to flee. "The thane of Kaldskryke and his Ravens
have ... decamped."

The king hissed out a long breath and his hand tugged
at Sorrow's hilt, sinews jumping in his pale arm. A length
of the gray sword appeared, mottled and shiny as a
pikefish's back. The torches in the room seemed to bend
inward, as though drawn toward it. "Priest," Elias
growled, "you are listening to your last few heartbeats if
you don't speak quickly and plainly."

Instead of cringing, Pryrates drew himself upright. The
torches fluttered again, and the alchemist's black eyes lost
their luster; for a moment, the whites seemed to vanish,
almost as though they had drawn back into his head, leav-
ing only holes in a darkened skull. An oppressive tension
filled the tower room. Pryrates raised his hand and the
king's knuckles tightened on the sword's long hilt. After
a moment's stillness the priest lifted his fingers to his
neck, carefully smoothed the collar of his red robe as
though adjusting the fit, theft let the hand drop again.

"I am sorry. Highness," he said, and allowed himself a
small, self-mocking smile. "It is often a counselor's wish
to shield his liege from news that might be upsetting. You
have seen rightly. The Sithi have come to Hernystir and
Skali has been driven out."

Elias stared at him for a long moment. "What does this
mean to all your plans, priest? You said nothing about the
Dawn Children."

Pryrates shrugged. "Because it means nothing. It was
inevitable once things reached a certain point. The in-
creasing activity of ... of our benefactor was bound to
draw them in. It should not disrupt any of our plans."

"Should not? Are you saying that what the Sithi do
doesn't matter to the Storm King?"

"That one has planned long- There is nothing that will
surprise him in any of this. In truth, the Norn Queen told
me to expect it."

576                  Tad Williams

"She did, did she? You seem very well informed,
Pryrates," Elias' voice had not lost its edge of fury. "Then
tell me: if you knew this, why can you not tell me what
is happening with Fengbald? Why have we no knowledge
of whether he has driven my brother from his lair?"

"Because our allies deem it of little account." Pryrates
lifted his hand again, this time to forestall the king's an-
gry reply. "Please, majesty, you asked for candor and so
I give it to you. They feel that Josua is beaten and that
you waste your time with him. The Sithi, on the other
hand, have been the enemies of the Noms since time out

of mind."

"But still of no account, apparently, if what you said

before is correct." The king glowered. "I do not under-
stand how they can be more important than my treacher-
ous brother and yet not important enough for us to worry
about—even when they have destroyed one of my chief
allies. I think you are playing a double game, Pryrates.
God help you if I find that to be true!"

"I serve only my master, Highness, not the Storm King,
not the Norn Queen. It is all a matter of timing. Josua was
a threat to you once, but you defeated him. Skali was
needed to protect your flank, but he is no longer neces-
sary- Even the Sithi are no threat, because they will not
come against us until they have saved Hemystir. They are
cursed by ancient loyalties, you see. That will be far too
late for them to be any hindrance to your ultimate vic-
tory."

Elias stared into his steaming cup. "Then why did I see

them riding in my dreams?"

"You have grown close to the Storm King, sire, since
you accepted his gift." Pryrates gestured to the gray
sword, now sheathed once more. "He is of the Sithi
blood—or was when he still lived, to speak rightly. It is
only natural that the mustering of the Zida'ya should
draw his attention and thus make its way to you." He
moved a few steps closer to the king. "You have had
other ... dreams ... before this, have you not?"

"You know I have, alchemist." Elias drained the cup,
then made a face as he swallowed. "My nights, those few

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER

577

when sleep actually comes, are full of him. Full of him!
Of that frozen thing with the burning heart." His eyes
wandered across the shadowed walls, suddenly full of
fear. "Of the dark spaces between ..."

"Peace, your Majesty," Pryrates said. "You have suf-
fered much, but the reward will be splendid. You know
that."

Elias shook his head heavily. His voice, when he spoke,
was a straining rasp. "I wish I had known the way this
would feel, the things ... the things tt would do to me. I
wish I had known before I made that devil's bargain. God
help me, I wish I had known."

"Let me get my sleeping-wax for you, Highness. You
need rest."

"No." The king lifted himself awkwardly from the
chair. "I do not want any more dreams. It would be better
never to sleep again."

Elias moved slowly toward the door, waving away
Pryrates' offer of assistance. He was a long time going
down the stairs.

The red-robed priest stood and listened to his entire de-
scent- When the great outer doors creaked open and then
crashed closed, Pryrates shook' his head once, as if dis-
missing an irritating thought, then went to retrieve the
books he had hidden.

«

Jiriki had gone ahead, his smooth strides carrying him
deceptively quickly. Eolair, Isom, and Ule followed at a
slower pace, trying to take in the strange sights.

It was particularly unsettling for Eolair, to whom
Hemysadharc and the Taig had been a second residence.
Now, following the Sitha across Hem's Hill, he felt like
a father come home to find that all his children were
changelings.

The Sithi had built their tent city so swiftly, the bil-
lowing cloths stretched artfully between the trees that
ringed the Taig, that it almost seemed it had always been
there—that it belonged. Even the colors, which had been

578

Tad Williams

so jarringly bright when seen from a distance, now
seemed to him more muted—tones of summer sunset and
dawn more in keeping with a king's house and gardens.

If their lodgings already seemed like a natural part of
the hilltop, the Zida'ya themselves seemed scarcely less
at home. Eolair saw no sign of diffidence or meekness in
those Sithi who surrounded him; they paid scant attention
to the count and his companions. The immortals walked
proudly, and as they worked they sang lilting songs in a
language that, although strange to him, seemed oddly fa-
miliar in its swooping vowels and birdlike trills. Although
they had been in the place scarcely a day, they seemed as
comfortable on the snowy grass and beneath the trees as
swans scudding across a mirror-still pond. Everything
they did seemed to speak of immense calm and self-
knowledge; even the act of looping and knotting the many
ropes that gave their tent city its shape became a kind of
conjuror's trick. Watching them, Eolair—who had always
been judged a nimble, graceful man—felt bestial and

clumsy.

The new-made house into which Jiriki had vanished
was little more than a ring of blue and lavender cloth
which hemmed one of the hilltop's magisterial oak trees
like a paddock around a prize bull. As Eolair and the oth-
ers stood, uncertain, Jiriki reemerged and beckoned them

forward.

"Please understand that my mother may stray a little
beyond the bounds of courtesy," Jiriki murmured as they
stood at the opening. "We are mourning for my father and
First Grandmother." He ushered them forward into the en-
closure. The grass was dry, swept clean of snow. "I bring
Count Eolair of Nad Mullach," he said, "Isorn
Isgrimnurson of Elvritshalla, and Ule Frekkeson of
Skoggey."

The Sitha-woman looked up. She was seated on a cloth
of pale, shining blue, surrounded by the birds which she
had been feeding. Despite the soft feathered bodies
perched on her knees and arms, Eolair had the immediate
impression that she was hard as sword-steel. Her hair was
flaming red, bound by a gray scarf across her forehead;

TO   GREEN   ANGEL  TOWER

579

several long, soot-colored feathers hung in her braids.
Like Jiriki, she was armored in what looked to be wood,
but hers was shiny and black as a beetle's shell. Beneath
the armor she wore a kirtle of dove-gray. Soft boots of the
same color rose above her knees. Her eyes, like her son's,
were molten gold.

"Likimeya y'Briseyu no'e-Sa'onserei," Jiriki intoned.
"Queen of the Dawn Children and Lady of the House of
Year-Dancing."

Eolair and the rest dropped to a knee.

"Get up, please." She spoke in a throaty murmur, and
seemed less comfortable with the mortal tongue than
Jiriki. "This is your land. Count Eolair, and it is the
Zida'ya who are guests here. We have come to pay our
debt to your Sinnach."

"We are honored. Queen Likimeya."

She waved a long-nailed hand- "Do not say 'queen.' It
is a title, only—it is the nearest mortal word. But we do
not call ourselves such things except at certain times."
She cocked an eyebrow at Eolair as he and his compan-
ions rose. "You know, Count Eolair, there is an old story
that Zida'ya blood is in the House of Nad Mullach."

For a moment the count was confused, thinking she
meant some kind of injustice had been done against the
Sithi in his ancestral home. When he realized what she had
truly said, he felt his own blood turn cold and the hairs lift
on the back of his arms. "An old story?" Eolair felt as
though his head was about to float away. "I'm sorry, my
lady, I am not sure I understand. Do you mean to say that
there was Sithi blood among my ancestors?"

Likimeya smiled, a sudden, fierce gleam of teeth. "It is
an old story, as I said."

"And do the Sithi know whether it is true?" Was she
playing some son of game with him?

She fluttered her fingers. A cloud of birds leaped up
and into the tree branches overhead, momentarily hiding
her from view with the blur of their wings. "Long ago,
when mortals and Zida'ya were closer ..." She made a
strange gesture. "It could be. We know it can happen."

Eolair definitely felt himself on shaky ground, and was

580 Tad Williams

surprised at how swiftly his training in diplomacy and
politicking had deserted him. "It has happened, then? The
Fair Folk have ... mingled with mortals?"

Likimeya seemed to lose interest in the subject. "Yes.
Long ago, for the most part." She motioned to Jiriki, who
came forward with more of the shimmery, silken cloths,
which he spread for the count and his companions before
gesturing for them to sit. "It is good to be on M'yin
Azoshai again."

"That is what we call this hill," Jiriki explained. "It
was given to Hem by Shi'iki and Senditu. It was, I sup-
pose you would say, a sacred place for our folk. That it
was granted to a mortal for his steading is a mark of the
friendship between Hern's people and the Dawn Chil-
dren."

"We have a legend that says something much like
that," Eolair said slowly. "I had wondered if there was
truth to it."

"Most legends have a kernel of truth at their center."
Jiriki smiled.

Likimeya had turned her cat-bright eyes from Eolair to
his two comrades, who almost seemed to flinch beneath
the weight of her gaze, "And you are Rimmersmen," she
said, looking at them intently. "We have little cause to
love your folk."

Isom hung his head. "Yes, Lady, you do." He took a
deep breath, steadying his voice. "But please, do not for-
get that we live short lives. That was many years ago—a
score of generations. We are not much like Fingil."

Likimeya's smile was brief. "You may not be, but what
about this kinsman of yours we have put to flight? I have
seen his handiwork here on M'yin Azoshai, and it looks
little different than what your Fingil BIoodfist did to the
Zida'ya lands five centuries ago."

Isom shook his head slowly, but did not reply. Beside
him, Ule had turned quite pale and looked as though he
might bolt at any moment.

"Isom and Ule fought against Skali," Eolair said hur-
riedly, "and we were bringing more men here to take up
the battle when you and your folk passed us by- You have

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER           581

done these two as great a favor by putting the murderer to
flight as you have done for my own people. Now there is
hope that someday Isom's father can retain his rightful
dukedom."

"Ah." Likimeya nodded. "Now we come to it. Jiriki,
have these men eaten?"

Her son looked at the count inquiringly. "No, my lady,"
Eolair replied.

"Then you will eat with us, and we will talk."

Jiriki got up and vanished through a gap in the rippling
walls- There followed a long and, for Eolair, uncomforta-
ble silence which Likimeya seemed uninchned to break.
They sat and listened to the wind in the oak tree's upper
branches until Jiriki returned bearing a wooden tray piled
with fruit, bread, and cheese.

The count was astonished. Didn't these creatures have
servants to perform such humble tasks? He watched while
Jiriki, as commanding a presence as he had ever encoun-
tered, poured something from a blue crystal flask into
drinking cups carved from the same wood as the tray,
then handed the cups to Eolar and his companions with a
simple but elegant bow. The queen and prince of the el-
dest folk, yet they waited on themselves? The gap be-
tween Eolair and these immortals seemed broader than
ever.

Whatever was in the crystal flask burned like fire but
tasted like clover-honey and smelled like violets. Ule
sipped his cautiously, then drained it at a swallow and
gladly let Jiriki refill his cup. As he drank his own cup
dry, Eolair felt the pain of two days' hard riding dissolve
in the warm glow. The food was excellent as well, each
piece of fruit at the peak of ripeness- The count wondered
briefly where the Sithi could have found such delicacies
in the middle of a year-long winter, but dismissed it as
only another small miracle in what was rapidly becoming
a vast catalog of wonders.

"We have come to war," Likimeya said suddenly. Of
all, only she had not eaten, and she had taken no more
than a sip of the honey cordial. "Skali eludes us for a mo-
ment, but the heart of your kingdom is free. We have

582 Tad Williams

made a start. With your help, Eolair, and those of your
people whose wills are still strong, we will soon lift the
yoke from the neck of our old allies."

"There are no words for our gratitude. Lady," Eclair re-
plied. "The Zida'ya have shown us today that they honor
their promises. Few mortal tribes can say the same."

"And what then. Queen Likimeya?" Isom asked. He
had drunk three glasses of the pale elixir, and his face had
gone a bit red. "Will you ride with Josua? Will you help
him take the Hayholt?"

The look she turned on him was cool and austere. "We
do not fight for mortal princes, Isom Isgrimnurson. We
fight to honor our debts, and to protect ourselves."

Eolair felt his heart sink. "So you will stop here?"

Likimeya shook her head, then lifted her hands and
wove her fingers together. "It is nothing like that simple.
I spoke too quickly. No, there are things that threaten
both your Josua Lackhand and the Dawn Children as
well. Lackhand's enemy has made a bargain with our en-
emy, it seems. Still, we will do what we alone are fit for:

once Hemystir is free, we will leave the wars of mortals
to mortals—at least for now. No, Count Eolair, we owe
other debts, but these are strange times." She smiled, and
this time the smile was a little less predatory, a little more
like something that might stretch across a mortal face.
Eolair was struck by her angular beauty. At the same mo-
ment, in lightning juxtaposition, he realized that he sat
before a being who had seen the fall of Asu'a. She was as
old as the greatest cities of men—older, perhaps- He shiv-
ered.

"Yet," Likimeya continued, "although we wilt not ride
to the aid of your embattled prince, we will ride to the aid
of his fortress."

There was a moment of confused silence before Isom
spoke. "Your pardon. Lady. We do not understand what
you mean."

It was Jiriki who answered. "When Hemystir is free,
we will ride to Naglimund. It is the Storm King's now,
and it stands too close to the house of our exile. We will
take this place back from him." The Sitha's face was

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER

583

gnm. "Also, when the final battle comes—and it is com-
ing, mortal men, do not doubt it—we wish to be sure that
the Noms have no bolt hole left in which to hide them-
selves."

Eolair watched Jiriki's eyes as the Sitha spoke, and fan-
cied that he saw a hatred there that had smoldered for
centuries.

"A war unlike any the world has seen," Likimeya said
A war in which many matters will be settled for once
and all. If Jinki's eyes smoldered, hers blazed

19

A Broken Smite

A

"I have done all I can do for either of them—
unless ..." Cadrach rubbed fretfully at his damp fore-
head, as though to bring out some idea hiding there. He
was obviously exhausted, but just as obviously—with the
duke's slurs still fresh in his mind—he was not going to
let that stop him.

"There is nothing else to be done," Miriamele said
firmly. "Lie down. You need some sleep."

Cadrach looked up at Isgrimnur, who stood at the bow
of the flatboat with the pole clasped firmly in his broad
hands. The duke only tightened his lips and returned to
his inspection of the watercourse. "Yes, then, I suppose I
should." The monk curled up beside the still forms of
Tiamak and the other Wrannaman.

Miriamele, recently awakened from her own evening-
long nap, leaned forward and draped her cloak across the
three of them. There was little use for the garment any-
way, except to keep off bugs. Even near midnight, the
marsh was warm as a midsummer day.

"If we snuff the lamp," Isgrimnur rumbled, "maybe
these creepy-crafties will go make a meal on something
else for a change." He slapped at his upper arm and held
the resultant smear up for inspection. "The damnable
light draws them. You'd think a lamp that comes from
that marsh-man town would keep 'em away." He snorted.
"How people can live here year-round is a puzzle to me."

"If we're going to do that, we should drop the anchor."
Miriamele did not much like the idea of floating along in

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER                           585

the dark. So far, they seemed to have left the ghants be-
hind, but she still looked carefully at every low-hanging
branch or dangling vine. But Isgrimnur had gone long
without sleep; it only seemed fair to try to bring him
some relief from the flying insects.

"That's good. I think this bit is wide enough to make us
as safe as we'd be anywhere else," Isgrimnur said. "Don't
see any branches. The little bugs are bad enough, but if I
never see one of those Aedon-cursed big ones again ..."
He did not need to finish. Miriamele's shallow sleep had
been full of dreams of clacking, scuttling ghants and
sticky tendrils that held her in place when she wanted
only to run.

"Help me with the anchor." Together they heaved the
stone up and dumped it over the side. When it had struck
bottom, Miriamele tested the rope to make sure there was
not too much slack. "Why don't you sleep first," she told
the duke. "I'll watch for a little while."

"Very well."

She glanced quickly at Camaris, sleeping soundlessly
in the stem with his white head propped on his cloak,
then she reached out and shuttered the lamp.

At first, the darkness was frighteningly complete.
Miriamele could almost feel jointed legs reaching silently
toward her, and fought the impulse to turn around and
wave her hands in the blackness to keep the phantoms at
bay.

"Isgrimnur?"

"What?"

"Nothing. I just wanted to hear your voice."

Her sight began to come back. There was little enough
light—the moon was gone, either blocked by clouds or by
the close-tangled trees that roofed the watercourse, and
the stars were only faint specks—but she could make out
forms around her, the dark bulk of the duke, the patchy
shadows of the river banks on either side.

She heard Isgrimnur rattling the pole around until he
got it well-situated, then his shadowy form sank down.
"Are you sure you don't need to sleep more yourself?" he
asked. Weariness was making his voice muddy.

586

Tad Williams

"I'm rested. I'll sleep a little later. Go on now, put your

head down."

Isgrimnur did not protest further—a sure sign of his ex-
haustion. Within moments he was snoring noisily.

Miriamele smiled.

The boat moved so smoothly that it was not hard to
imagine they were floating like a cloud through the night
sky. There was no tide and no discernible current, only
the minute push of the swamp breezes that sent them
slowly circling around the anchor, moving smoothly as
quicksilver on a tilted pane of glass, Miriamele sat back
and stared up at the murky sky, trying to make out a fa-
miliar star. For the first time in some days, she could af-
ford the luxury of homesickness.

/ wonder what my father is doing now? Does he think
about me? Does he hate me?

Thoughts of Elias set other things to stirring inside her
head. Something Cadrach had mentioned their first night
after escaping the Eadne Cloud had been nagging at her.
During his long and difficult confession, the monk had
said that Pryrates had seemed particularly interested in
communicating with the dead—"speaking through the
veil," Cadrach had said it was called—and that those
were the parts of Misses' book on which he had been
most fixated. For some reason, that phrase had made her
think of her father. But why? Was it something Elias had

said?

Try as she might to summon the idea that had snagged
at the back of her mind, it remained elusive- The boat
spun slowly, silent beneath dim stars.

She had drowsed a little. The first light of morning was
creeping into the skies above the marsh, turning them
pearly gray. Miriamele straightened, groaning quietly. Her
bruises and aches from the ghant nest had begun to
stiffen: she felt as though she had been rolled down a hill
in a bag of rocks-

"L-L-Lady?" It was a breathy sound, little more than
a sigh.

"Tiamak?!" She turned abruptly, causing the boat to

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER                           587

pitch. The Wrannaman's eyes were open. His face, though
pale and slack-featured, held the spark of intelligence
once more.

"Y-yes. Yes, Lady." He took a deep breath, as though
even those few words had tired him out. "Where ... are
we?"

"We are on the waterway, but I have no idea where. We
poled for most of a day after leaving the ghant nest." She
looked at him carefully. "Are you in pain?"

He tried to shake his head, but could only move it
slightly. "No. But water. Would be kind."

She leaned across the boat to take the water skin lying
near Isgrimnur's leg. She unstoppered it and gave the
Wrannaman a few careful swallows.

Tiamak turned a little to eye the still form next to him.
"Younger Mogahib," he whispered. "Is he alive?"

"Barely. At least he seems very close to ... he seems
very sick, although Cadrach and I couldn't find any
wounds on him."

"No. You would not. Nor on me." Tiamak let his head
fall back and closed his eyes. "And the others?"

"Which others?" she asked cautiously. "Cadrach,
Isgrimnur, Camaris, and I are *all here, and all more or
less well."

"Ah. Good." Tiamak's eyes remained closed.

In the prow, Isgrimnur sat up groggily, "What's this,
then?" he mumbled. "Miriamele ... what?"

"Nothing, Isgrimnur. Tiamak's woken up."

"Has, has he?" The duke settled back, already sliding
down into slumber once more. "Brains not scrambled?
Talks like himself? Damnedest thing I ever saw ..."

"You were speaking another language in the nest,"
Miriamele told Tiamak. "It was frightening."

"I know." His face rippled, as though he fought down
revulsion. "I will talk about it later. Not now." His eyes
opened partway. "Did you bring anything out with me?"

Miriamele shook her head, thinking. "Just you. And the
muck you were covered with."

"Ah." Tiamak looked disappointed for a moment, but

588 Tad Williams

then relaxed. "Just as well." A moment later, his eyes
opened wide. "And my belongings?" he demanded.

"Everything you had in the boat is still here." She pat-
ted the bundle,

"Good ... good." He sighed his relief and slid down
into the cloak.

The sky was growing paler, and the foliage on either
side of the river was beginning to emerge from shadow
into color and life.

"Lady?"

"What?"

'Thank you. Thank you all for coming after me."

Miriamele listened as his breathing grew slower. Soon
the little man was asleep again.

"As I told Miriamele last night," Tiamak said, "I wish
to thank you all. You have been better friends to me than
I could have hoped—certainly better than I have earned."

Isgrimnur coughed. "Nonsense. Couldn't have done
anything else." Miriamele thought the duke looked a little
shamefaced. Perhaps he was remembering the debate on
whether to try to save the Wrannaman or to leave him be-

hind-

The company had set up a makeshift camp near the wa-
tercourse. The small fire, its flames almost invisible in the
bright late-morning light, was burning merrily, heating
water for soup and yeltowroot tea.

"No, you do not understand. It was not merely my life
you saved. If I have a ka—a soul, you would call it—it
would not have survived another day in that place. Per-
haps not another hour."

"But what were they doing to you?" Miriamele asked.
"You were babbling away—you sounded almost like a
ghant yourself!"

Tiamak shuddered. He was sitting up, wrapped in her
cloak, but he had so far moved very little. "I will tell you
as best I can, although I do not understand much myself.
But you are certain that you brought nothing out of that
place with me?"

The rest of the company shook their heads.

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER                           589

"There was ..." he began, then stopped, thinking. "It
was a piece of what looked like a mirror—a looking
glass. It was broken, but there was still a bit of the frame
in place, carved with great an. They ... the ghants ...
they put it in my hands." He lifted his palms to show
them the healing cuts. "As soon as I held it, I felt cold
running through me, from my fingers right into my head.
Then some of the creatures vomited forth that sticky sub-
stance, covering me with it." He took a deep breath but
could not immediately continue. For a moment he just
sat, tears shining in his eyes.

"You don't have to talk about it, Tiamak," Miriamele
said. "Not now."

"Or at least just tell us how they got hold of you,"
Isgrimnur said. "If that's not so bad. I mean."

The Wrannaman looked down at the ground. "They
caught me as easily as if I were a just-hatched crablet.
Three of them dropped on me out of the trees," he looked
up quickly, as though it might happen again, "and while
I struggled with them, a dozen more came swarming
down and overwhelmed me. Oh, they are clever! They
wrapped me in vines, just as you or I would bind a pris-
oner, although they did not seem able to tie knots. Still,
they held the vines tight enough that I could not escape.
Then they tried to lift me into the trees, but I suppose I
was too heavy. Instead, they were forced to grab at vines
and sunken branches and pull the flatboat against the
sandbank. Then they took me to the nest. I cannot tell you
how many times I wished that they would kill me, or at
least knock me senseless. To be carried alive and awake
through that horrible pitch-black place by those chattering
things... !" He had to pause for a moment to regain his
composure.

"What they did with me, they had already done with
Younger Mogahib." He nodded toward the other
Wrannaman, who lay on the ground nearby, still locked in
feverish slumber. "I think he lived because he had not
been there long: perhaps he had not proved as useful a
tool as they thought I would. In any case, they must have
had to free him to get the mirror-shard for me. When they

590

Tad Williams

dragged him past, I cried out. He was half-mad, but he
heard my voice and called back. I recognized him then,
and shouted that my boat was still on the bank outside,
that he should escape if he could and take it."

"Did you tell him to find us?" Cadrach asked. "It was
an unbelievable stroke of luck if he was trying to."

"No, no," Tiamak said. "There were only moments.
Later, though, I hoped that if he did get free and made his
way back to Village Grove, he might find you there. But
even then, I only hoped that you would find out I had not
deserted you by choice." He frowned. "It was too much
to hope that someone would come into that place after

me...."

"Enough of that, man," Isgrimnur said quickly. "What

were they doing to you?"

Miriamele was certain now that the duke wished to
avoid the subject of their decision. She almost smiled- As
if anyone would ever doubt his good will and bravery!
Still, after what he had said about Cadrach, perhaps
Isgrimnur was a little sensitive.

"I am still not sure." Tiamak squinted, as if trying to
summon an image to his mind's eye- "As I said, they ...
put the mirror in my hand and covered me with that ooze.
The feeling of cold grew stronger and stronger. I thought
I was dying—smothering and freezing at the same mo-
ment' Then, just when I was certain I had breathed my
last, something even stranger happened." He looked up,
meeting Miriamele's eyes as though to make sure that she
would believe him. "Words began to come into my
head—no, not words. There were no words to it at all,
merely ... visions." He paused. "It was as though a door
had been opened—as though someone pushed an entrance
through into my head and other thoughts came flooding
in. But, worst of all, they . . . they were not human

thoughts."

"Not human? But how could you know such a thing?"
Cadrach was interested now, leaning forward, his gray
eyes intent on the Wrannaman.

"I cannot explain, but just as you could hear a red
knifebill squawk in the trees and know it was not a hu-

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER

591

man voice, so I could tell that these were thoughts that
had never known a mortal mind. They were . . . cold
thoughts. Slow and patient and so hateful to me that I
would have torn my head from my shoulders if I had not
been imprisoned in that muck. If I did not quite believe in
They Who Breathe Darkness before, I do now. It was
h-horrible to have them inside of my sk-skull."

Tiamak was shaking- Miriamele reached forward to
pull the cloak up around his shoulders. Isgrimnur, nervous
and fidgeting, threw more sticks onto the flames. "Per-
haps you have told enough," she said.

"I am almost f-f-finished. F-forgive me, my t-t-teeth
are banging together."

"Here," Isgrimnur said, relieved to have something to
do. "We'll move you closer to the fire."

When Tiamak was relocated, he began again.

"I half-knew that I was speaking like a ghant, although
it did not feel like that. I felt as though I was taking the
terrible, crushing thoughts inside my head and speaking
them aloud, but somehow it came out as clicks and buzz-
ing and all the noises those creatures make. Yet it made
sense, somehow—it was what I wanted to do, to talk and
talk, to let all the thoughts of the cold thing inside me just
bleed out for the ghants to understand."

"What were the thoughts about?" Cadrach asked. "Can
you remember?"

Tiamak scowled. "Some. But as I said, they were not
words, and they were so unlike the things I think or you
think that I find it difficult even to explain what I do re-
member." He snaked a hand out from the folds of the
cloak to take a bowl of yellowroot tea. "They were vi-
sions, really, just pictures as I told you. I saw ghants
swarming out of the swamps into the cities—thousands
upon thousands, like flies on a sugar-bulb tree. They were
just... just swarming. And they were all singing in their
buzzing voices, all singing the same song of power and
food and never dying."

"And this was what the ... the cold thing was telling
them?" Miriamele asked.

"I suppose. I was speaking as a ghant, I was seeing

592

Tad Williams

things as they did—and that was terrible, too. He Who
Always Steps on Sand, preserve me from ever seeing
such a thing again! The world through their eyes is
cracked and skewed, the only colors are blood-red and
tar-black. Shimmery, too, as though everything were cov-
ered in grease, or as if one's eyes were full of water.
And—this is the hardest to explain—nothing had a face,
not the other ghants, not the people running screaming
from the invaded cities. Every living th-thing was just a
muddy 1-1-lump with 1-legs."

Tiamak fell silent, sipping his tea, the bowl trembling

in his hands.

"That is all." He took a deep, shaky breath. "It seemed
as though it lasted for years, but it cannot have been more
than a few days."

"Poor Tiamak!" Miriamele said with feeling. "How did
you keep your wits!?"

"I would not have if you had been any longer in com-
ing," he said firmly. "I am sure of that. I could feel my
own mind straining and slipping, as though I hung by my
fingertips over a long drop. A drop into darkness without
end." He looked down into his tea-bowl. "I wonder how
many of my fellow villagers besides Younger Mogahib
served them as I did, but were not rescued?"

"There were lumps." Isgrimnur spoke slowly. "Other
lumps in a row beside you—but bigger, with no heads
sticking out. I came close to them." He hesitated. "There
were ... there were shapes under that white ooze."

"Others of my tribe, I am sure," Tiamak murmured.
"Ah, it is horrible. They must have been used up like can-
dles, one at a time." His face sagged. "Horrible."

No one said anything for a while.

Miriamele finally spoke. "You said that the ghants had
never been dangerous before."

"No. Although I am sure now that they became danger-
ous enough after I left that the villagers made a raid on
the nest. That is why the weapons were missing from
Older Mogahib's house, almost certainly. And the things
Isgrimnur saw tells what happened to the raiders." He

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER

593

looked over to the other Wrannaman. "This one was
probably the last of the prisoners,"

"But I still don't understand all this about a mirror,"
the duke said. "Ghants don't use mirrors, do they?"

"No. Nor do they make anything so fine." Tiamak of-
fered the duke a weak smile. "I wonder too, Isgrimnur."

Cadrach, who had been pouring out a bowlful of tea for
silent Camaris, turned to look over his shoulder. "I have
some ideas, but I must think on them. However, one thing
is sure. If some sort of intelligence does guide those crea-
tures, or is capable of guiding them sometimes, then we
cannot afford to tarry. We must escape the Wran as
swiftly as we possibly can." His tone was cold, as though
he spoke of events that barely concerned him. Miriamele
did not like the distant look in his eyes.

Isgrimnur nodded. "The monk's right, for once. I don't
see that we have any time to waste."

"But Tiamak is sick'" Miriamele said angrily.

"There is nothing to be done. Lady. They are right. If
I can be propped up with something to lean against, I can
give directions. I can at least take us-far enough from the
nest by nightfall that we might risk sleeping on land."

"Let's to it, then." Isgrimnur rose. "Time is short."

"It is indeed," said Cadrach. "And growing shorter ev-
ery day."

His tone was so flat and somber that the others turned
to look at him, but the monk only sloshed to the water's
edge and began loading their belongings back into the
flatboat.

By the next day, Tiamak was much recovered, but
Younger Mogahib was not. The Wrannaman slid in and
out of fever-madness. He thrashed and raved, shouting
things that, when Tiamak translated them, sounded much
like the nightmarish visions he himself had experienced;

when he was quiet. Younger Mogahib lay like one dead.
Tiamak fed him concoctions made from healing herbs
gathered along the banks of the watercourse, but they
seemed little use.

"His body is strong. But I think his thoughts are

594

Tad Williams

wounded, somehow." Tiamak sadly shook his head. "Per-
haps they had him longer than I suspected."

They sailed on through the Wran, bearing north in the
large part, but going there by a circuitous route that only
Tiamak could follow. It was clear that without him they
would indeed have been doomed to wander the swamp's
backwaters for a long time. Miriamele did not like to
think about what their end might have been.

She was growing tired of the swamp. The descent into
the nest had filled her with a disgust for mud and stench
and odd creatures that now spread to include all the wild
Wran. It was stunningly alive, but so was a tub full of
worms. She would not want to spend a moment longer
than necessary in either of them.

On the third night after their escape from the nest,
Younger Mogahib died. He had been shouting, according
to Tiamak, about "the sun running backward" and about
blood pouring through the drylander cities like rainwater,
when suddenly his face darkened and his eyes bulged.
Tiamak tried to give him water to drink, but his jaws were
clamped shut and could not be opened. A moment later,
the Wrannaman's entire body went rigid. Long after the
gleam of life had faded from his wide eyes he remained
as stiff as a wooden post.

Tiamak was upset, although he tried to maintain his
composure. "Younger Mogahib was not a friend," he said
as they drew a cloak over the staring face, "but he was
the last link to my village. Now I will not know if they
were all captured—taken to the nest..." his lip quivered,
"... or fled to another, safer village when the raiding
party failed."

"If there are safer villages," said Cadrach. "You say
there are many ghant nests in the Wran. Could this be the
only one that has become so dangerous?"

"I do not know." The small man sighed. "I will have to
come back and search for an answer to that,"

"Not by yourself," Miriamele said firmly. "Stay with
us. When we find Josua, he will help you find your peo-
ple."

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER                           595

"Now, Princess," Isgrimnur cautioned, "you can't
know that for certain...."

"Why not? Am I not of the royal blood as well?
Doesn't that count for anything? Besides, Josua will need
all the allies he can find, and the Wrannamen are nothing
to scoff at—as Tiamak has proven to us time and again."

The marsh man was dreadfully embarrassed. "You are
kind. Lady, but I could not hold you to such a promise."
He looked down at Younger Mogahib's shrouded form
and sighed. "We must do something with his body."

"Bury him?" Isgrimnur asked. "How do you, when the
ground's so wet?"

Tiamak shook his head- "We do not bury our dead. I
will show you in the morning. Now, if you will forgive
me, I need to walk for a while." He limped slowly out of
the campground.

Isgrimnur looked uncomfortably at the body. "I wish
he hadn't left us with this."

"Do you fear ghosts, Rimmersman?" Cadrach asked
with an unpleasant smile.

Miriamele frowned. She had hoped that when the
monk's oil-fire missiles had helped them escape, the hos-
tility between Cadrach and Isgmnnur would diminish. In-
deed, the duke seemed ready to call a truce, but Cadrach's
anger had hardened into something cold and more than a
little unpleasant.

"There's nothing wrong with caution ..." Isgrimnur
began.

"Oh, be quiet, both of you," Miriamele said irritably.
"Tiamak has just lost his friend."

"Not a friend," Cadrach pointed out.

"His clansman, then. You heard him: this man was the
only one of his village he's found since he returned. This
is the only other Wrannaman he's seen! And now he's
dead. You'd want a little time alone, too." She turned on
her heel and walked over to sit next to Camaris, who was
twining grasses to make a sort of necklace.

"Well ..." Isgrimnur said, but then fell silent, chewing
his beard. Cadrach, too, said no more.

596 Tad Williams

When Miriamele awoke the next morning, Tiamak was
gone. Her fears were allayed a short while later when he
returned to the camp bearing a huge sheaf of oil-palm
fronds. As she and the others watched, he wrapped Youn-
ger Mogahib with them, layer after layer, as if in parody
of the priest of Erchester's House of Preparing; soon
there was nothing to be seen but an oblong bundle of ooz-
ing green leaves.

"I will take him now," Tiamak said quietly. "You need
not come with me if you do not wish it."

"Would you like us to?" Miriamele asked.

Tiamak looked at her for a moment, then nodded. "I
would like that, yes."

Miriamele made sure that the others came along—even
Camaris, who seemed far more interested in the fringe-
tailed birds in the branches overhead than in corpses and
funeral parties.

With Isgrimnur's help, Tiamak carefully laid Younger
Mogahib's leaf-wrapped body in the flatboat. A short way
up the watercourse, he poled against a sand bank and led
them ashore. He had built a sort of frame of thin branches
in a flat clearing. Beneath the frame, wood and more oil-
palm leaves had been stacked. Again with Isgrimnur's as-
sistance, Tiamak lifted the bundle up onto the slender
frame, which swayed gently beneath the weight of the
corpse.

When everything had been arranged to his satisfaction,
Tiamak stepped back and stood beside his companions,
facing the frame and the unlit pyre.

"She Who Waits to Take All Back," he intoned, "who
stands beside the last river. Younger Mogahib is leaving
us now. When he drifts past, remember that he was brave:

he went into the ghant nest to save his family, his clans-
men and clanswomen. Remember also that he was good."

Here Tiamak had to pause and think for a moment.
Miriamele remembered that he had said he and the other
Wrannaman had not been friends. "He always respected
his father and the other elders," Tiamak declared at last.
"He gave his feasts when they were allotted, and did not
stint." He took a deep breath. "Remember your agreement

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER                           597

with She Who Birthed Mankind. Younger Mogahib had
his life and lived it; then, when They Who Watch and
Shape touched his shoulder, he gave it up. She Who Waits
to Take All Back, do not let him drift by!" Tiamak turned
to his companions. "Say it with me, please."

"Do not let him drift by!" they all cried together. In the
tree overhead, a bird made a sound like a squeaky door.

Tiamak went and kneeled beside the pyre. With a few
strokes of flint and steel, he set a spark among the scraps
of oil palm. Within moments, the fire was burning
strongly, and soon the leaves wrapped around Younger
Mogahib's body began to blacken and curl.

"You do not need to watch," said Tiamak. "If you wait
for me a little downstream, I will join you soon."

This time, Miriamele sensed, the Wrannaman did not
want company. She and the others boarded the boat and
poled a little way along the watercourse, until a bend in
the stream hid from their view all but the growing plume
of dark gray smoke.

Later, when Tiamak came wading through the water,
Isgrimnur helped him aboard. They poled the short dis-
tance back to camp. Tiamak said little that night, but sat
and stared at the campfire long after the others had bed-
ded down.

A

"I think I understand something of Tiamak's story,
now," Cadrach said-
It was late morning, six days since they had left the
ghant nest behind. The weather was warm, but a breeze
made the watercourse more pleasant than it had been in
days- Miriamele was beginning to believe they might ac-
tually see the last of it soon.

"What do you mean, understand?" Isgrimnur tried to
keep the surliness out of his voice, but without complete
success. Relations between the Rimmersman and the
monk had continued to worsen.

Cadrach favored him with a magisterial stare, but
directed his reply to Miriamele and Tiamak, who sat in

598 Tad Williams

the middle of the boat. Camaris, watching the banks in-
tently, was poling in the stem. 'The shard of mirror. The
ghant speech- I think I may know what they mean."

"Tell us, Cadrach," Miriamele urged.

"As you know. Lady, I have studied many ancient mat-
ters." The monk cleared his throat, not entirely averse to
having an audience. "I have read of things called Wit-
nesses. .,."

"Was that in Misses' book?" Miriamele asked, then was
startled to feel Tiamak cringe beside her as if dodging a
blow. She turned to look at him, but the slender man was
staring at Cadrach with what looked oddly like
suspicion—a fierce, intent suspicion, as if it had just been
revealed that the Hemystirman was half-ghant.

Puzzled, she looked at the monk to find that he was
looking at her with fury.

/ suppose he doesn't much want to think about that,
Miriamele realized, and felt bad that she had not kept
quiet. Still, Tiamak's reaction was what truly puzzled her.
What had she said? Or what had Cadrach said?

"In any case," Cadrach said heavily, as if unwillingly
forced to continue, "there were once things called Wit-
nesses, which were made by the Sithi in the depths of
time. These things allowed them to speak to each other
over great distances, and perhaps even let them show
dreams and visions to each other. They came in many
forms—'Stones and Scales, Pools and Pyres,' as the old
books say. 'Scales' are what the Sithi called mirrors. I do
not know why."

"Are you saying that Tiamak's mirror was -.. one of
those things?" Miriamele asked-

"That is my guess."

"But what would the Sithi have to do with the ghants?
Even if they hate men, which I have heard, I can't believe
they would like those homd bugs any better."

Cadrach nodded. "Ah, but if these Witnesses still exist,
it could be that others beside the Sithi can use them. Re-
member, Princess, all the things you heard at Naglimund.
Remember who plans and waits in the frozen north."

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER                           599

Miriamele, thinking of Jamauga's strange speech, sud-
denly felt a chill quite unrelated to the mild breeze.

Isgrimnur leaned forward from his seat before Camaris'
knees. "Hold, man. Are you saying that this Storm King
fellow is doing some magic with the ghants? Then what
did they need Tiamak for? Doesn't make sense."

Cadrach bit back a sharp reply. "I don't claim to know
anything with certainty, Rimmersman. But it could be that
the ghants are too different, too ... simple, perhaps ...
for those who now use these Witnesses to be able to
speak with them directly." He shrugged. "It is my guess
that they needed a human as a sort of go-between. A mes-
senger."

"But what could the Stor ..." Miriamele caught her-
self. Even though Isgrimnur had uttered the name, she
had no desire to do the same- "What could someone like
that want with the ghants down in the Wran?"

Cadrach shook his head. "It is far beyond me. Lady.
Who could hope to know the plans of ... someone like
that?"

Miriamele turned to Tiamak. "Do you remember any-
thing else of what you were being made to say? Could
Cadrach be right?"

Tiamak appeared reluctant to talk about it. He stared
cautiously at the monk. "I do not know. I know little
about ., - about magic or ancient books. Very little." The
Wrannaman fell into silence.

"I thought I disliked the ghants before," Miriamele said
finally. "But if that's true—if they're somehow part of ...
of what Josua and the others are fighting against..." She
wrapped her arms around herself. "The sooner we leave
here, the better."

"That's something we all agree on," Isgrimnur rum-
bled.

In Miriamele's dreams that night, as the boat gently
rocked on the slow-moving waters, voices spoke to her
from behind a veil of shadow—thin, insistent voices that
whispered of decay and loss as though they were things
to be desired.

6oo Tad Williams

She woke up beneath the faint stars and realized that
even surrounded by friends, she was terribly lonely.

A

Tiamak's recovery proved to be incomplete. Within a
day after Younger Mogahib's ceremonial burning, he had
fallen back into a kind of fever that left him weak and
listless. When darkness fell, the Wrannaman had terrible
dreams, visions that he could not remember in the mom-
ing but which made him writhe in his sleep and cry out.
With Tiamak suffering his nightly tortures, the remainder
of the company was nearly as ill-rested as he was.

More days passed, but the Wran lingered like a guest
that had outstayed his welcome: for every league of
marshy tangle they crossed—floating beneath the steamy
sky or wading through clinging, foully-scented mud as
they struggled with the heavy flatboat—another league of
swamp appeared before them. Miriamele began to feel
that some sorcerer was playing a cruel trick on them, spir-
iting them back to their starting place each night while
they lay in shallow sleep.

The hovering insects who seemed to delight in finding
each person's tenderest spot, the shrouded but potent sun,
the air as hot and damp as the steam over a soupbowl, all
helped bring the travelers' tempers close to the snapping
point—and many times to push them past it. Even the ar-
rival of rain, which at first seemed like such a blessing,
turned out to be another curse. The monotonous, blood-
warm downpour persisted for three whole days, until
Miriamele and her companions began to feel that demons
were pounding on their heads with tiny hammers. The un-
pleasant conditions were even beginning to affect old
Camaris, who had previously been unmoved and un-
touched by almost everything, so calm that he allowed the
biting bugs to crawl across his skin without reprisal—
something that made Miriamele itch uncontrollably just
watching. But the three days and nights of unbroken rain
reached even the old knight at last. As they poled along
through the third day's storm, he pulled a hat he had

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER                           601

made from fronds lower over his white brows and stared
miserably out at the rain-pocked watercourse, his long
face so sorrowful that Miriamele finally went and put her
arm around him. He gave no clear sign of it, but some-
thing in his posture suggested he was grateful for the con-
tact; whether that was true or not, he stayed in place for
some time, seemingly a little more content. Miriamele
marveled at his broad back and shoulders, which seemed
almost indecently solid on an old man.

Tiamak found it a labor just to sit upright in the stem
of the boat, wrapped in a blanket, and call directions
through his chattering teeth. He told them they had nearly
reached the Wran's northern fringe, but he had already
told them that many days earlier, and the Wrannaman's
eyes now had an odd, glazed look. Miriamele and
Isgrimnur were being careful not to let each other see
they were worrying. Cadrach, who more than once
seemed on the verge of coming to blows with the duke,
was openly scornful about their chances of finding the
way out. Isgrimnur at last told him that if he made any
more pessimistic predictions he would be thrown over the
side, so that if he wished to make the rest of the journey
it would have to be by swimming. The monk ceased his
carping, but the looks he directed at the duke when
Isgrimnur's back was turned made Miriamele uneasy.

It was clear to her that the Wran was finally wearing
them all down. It was not a place for people, ultimately—
especially drylanders.

"Over here should do well," she said. She took a few
more awkward steps, struggling to stay upright as the
mud squelched beneath her bootsoles.

"If you say so. Lady," Cadrach murmured.
They had moved a little way from their camp to bury
the remains of their meal, mostly fish bones and scaly
skin and fruit pits. During the long course of their jour-
ney, the inquisitive Wran apes had proved all too willing
to come into camp in search of leavings, even if one of
the human company stayed up and sat sentry. The last
time the offal had not been removed to at least a few

602 Tad Williams

score yards from the campsite, the travelers had spent all
night in the middle of what seemed a festival of brawling,
screeching apes, all in mad competition for the rights to
the finest scraps.

"Go to, Cadrach," she said crossly. "Dig the hole."

He gave her a quick sidelong look, then bent and began
scraping at the moist soil. Pale wriggling things came -up
with each stroke of the hollowed reed spade, gleaming in
the torchlight. When he had finished, Miriamele dropped
in the leaf-wrapped bundle and Cadrach pushed the mud
over it, then turned and began to make his way back to-
ward the glow of the camp fire-

"Cadrach."

He turned slowly. "Yes, Princess?"

She took a few steps toward him- "I ... I am sorry that
Isgrimnur said what he did to you. At the nest." She lifted
her hands helplessly. "He was worried, and he sometimes
speaks without thinking. But he is a good man."

Cadrach's face was expressionless. It was as though he
had drawn some curtain across his thoughts, leaving his
eyes curiously flat in the torchlight. "Ah, yes-. A good
man. There are so few of those."

Miriamele shook her head. "That is not an excuse, I
know. But please, Cadrach, surely you can understand
why he was upset!"

"Of course. I can well understand it. I have lived with
myself for many years. Lady—how can I fault someone
else for feeling the same way, someone who doesn't even
know all that I know?"

"Damn you," Miriamele snapped. "Why must you be
this way? I don't hate you, Cadrach! I don't loathe you,
even though we have caused trouble for each other!"

He stared at her for a moment, seeming to struggle
with conflicting emotions. "No, my lady. You have
treated me better than I deserve."

She knew better than to argue. "And I don't blame you
at all for not wanting to go into that nest!"

He shook his head slowly. "No, Lady. Nor would any
man, even your duke, if they knew ..."

"Knew what?" she said sharply. "What happened to

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

you, Cadrach? Something more than what you told me
about Pryrates—and about the book?"

The monk's mouth hardened- "I do not wish to speak
of it."

"Oh, by Elysia's mercy," she said, frustrated. She took
a few steps forward and reached out and grasped his
hand. Cadrach flinched and tried to pull back, but she
held him tightly. "Listen to me. If you hate yourself, oth-
ers will hate you. Even a child knows that, and you are a
learned man."

"And if a child is hated," he spat, "that child will grow
to hate itself,"

She did not understand what he meant. "But, please,
Cadrach. You must forgive, starting with yourself. I can-
not bear to see a friend so mistreated, even by himself."

The steady pressure with which the monk had tried to
pull away suddenly slackened. "A friend?" he said rough-
ly.

"A fnend." Minamele squeezed his hand and then re-
leased it. Cadrach pulled back a step, but went no further.
"Now please, we must try to be kind to each other until
we reach Josua, or we shall all go mad."

"Reach Josua ..." The monk' repeated her words with-
out inflection. He was suddenly very distant.

"Of course." Miriamele started to walk toward the
camp, then stopped again. "Cadrach?"

He did not reply for a moment. "What?"

"You know magic, don't you?" When he remained si-
lent, she plunged on. "I mean, you know a great deal
about it, at least—you've made that clear. But I think that
you actually know how to do it."

"What are you talking about?" He sounded irritated,
but there was a trace of fear in his words. "If you are
talking about the fire-missiles, that was no magic at all.
The Perdminese invented that long ago, although they
made it with a different sort of oil. They used it for sea-
battles. ..."

"Yes, it was a clever thing to do. But there is more than
that to you, and you know it. Why else would you study
things like ... like that book. And I know all about Doc-

604 Tad Williams

tor Morgenes, so if you were part of his—what did you
call it? The Scroll League... ?"

Cadrach made a gesture of annoyance. "The Art, my
lady, is not some bag of wizard's tricks. It is a way of un-
derstanding things, of seeing how the world works just as
surely as a builder understands a lever or a ramp."

"You see! You do know about it!"

"I do not *do magic,' " he said firmly. "I have, once or
twice, used the knowledge I have from my studies." De-
spite his straightforward tone, he could not meet her eyes.
"But it is not what you think of as magic."

"But even so," Miriamele said. still eager, "think of the
help you could be to Josua. Think of the aid we could
give him. Morgenes is dead. Who else can advise the
prince about Pryrates?"

Now Cadrach did look up. He looked hunted, like a cur
backed into a comer. "Pryrates?" He laughed hollowly.
"Do you think that I can be any help against Pryrates?
And he is the smallest part of what is arrayed against you."

"All the more reason!" Miriamele reached out for his
hand again, but the monk pulled it away. "Josua needs
help, Cadrach. If you fear Pryrates, how much more do
you fear the kind of world he will make if he and this
Storm King are not defeated?"

At the sound of that terrible name, a muffled purr of
thunder could be heard in the distance. Startled, Miriamele
looked around, as though some vast, shadowy thing might
be watching them. When she turned back, Cadrach was
stumbling across the mud, headed back toward camp.

"Cadrach!"

"No more," he shouted. He kept his head lowered as he
vanished into the shadowy undergrowth. She could hear
him cursing as he made his way back across the treacher-
ous mud.

Miriamele followed him to camp, but Cadrach refused
all her attempts at conversation. She berated herself for
having said the wrong thing, just when she had thought
she was reaching him. What a mad, sad man he was!
And, equally infuriating, in the confusion of their talk she
had forgotten to ask him about her Pryrates-thought, the

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER                           605

one that had been tugging at her mind the other night—
something about her father, about death, about Pryrates
and Nisses* book. It still seemed important, but it might
be a long time until she could bring up the subject with
Cadrach again.

Despite the warm night, Miriamele rolled herself
lightly in her cloak when she lay down, but sleep would
not come. She lay half the night listening to the swamp's
strange, incessant music. She also had to put up with the
continual misery of crawling and fluttering things, but the
bugs, annoying as they might be, were as nothing com-
pared to the irritation of her restless thoughts.

To Miriamele's surprise and pleasure, the next day
brought a marked change in their surroundings- The trees
were less thickly twined, and in places the flatboat slid
out from the humid tangle onto wide shallow lagoons,
mirrors compromised only by the faint rippling of the
wind and the forests of swaying grasses which grew up
through the water.

Tiamak seemed pleased with their progress, and an-
nounced that they were very close to the Wran's outer-
most edge. However, their approaching escape did not
cure his weakness and fever, and the thin brown man
spent much of the morning slipping in and out of uncom-
fortable sleep, waking occasionally with a startled move-
ment and a mouthful of wild jabber before slowly coming
back to his ordinary self.

In late afternoon, Tiamak's fever became stronger, and
his discomfort increased to the point where he sweated
and babbled continuously, experiencing only short spans
of lucidity. During one of these, the Wrannaman regained
his wits enough to play apothecary for himself. He asked
Miriamele to prepare for him a concoction of herbs, some
of which he pointed out where they grew along the water-
course, a flowering grass called quickweed and a ground-
hugging, oval-leafed creeper which, in his weakened
state, he could not name.

"And yellowroot, too," Tiamak said, panting shallowly.
He looked dreadful, his eyes red, his skin shiny with per-

6o6 Tad Williams

spiration. Miriamele tried to keep her hands steady as she
ground the ingredients already gathered on a flat stone
she held in her lap. "Yellowroot, to speed the binding," he
mumbled.

"Which is that?" she asked. "Does it grow here?"

"No, But it does not matter." Tiamak tried to smile, but
the effort was too much, and instead he gritted his teeth
and groaned quietly. "Some in my bag." He rolled his
head ever so slightly in the direction of the sack he had
appropriated in Village Grove, which now held all the be-
longings he had guarded so zealously.

"Cadrach, would you find it?" Miriamele called. "I'm
afraid I'll spill what I have here."

The monk, who had been sitting at Camaris' feet while
the old man poled, stepped gingerly across the rocking
flatboat, avoiding Isgrimnur without a glance. He kneeled
and began to lift out and examine the contents of the bag.

"Yellowroot," Miriamele said.

"Yes, I heard. Lady," Cadrach replied with a little of
his old mocking tone. "A root. And I know that it is yel-
low, too ... thanks to my many years of study." Some-
thing that he felt beneath his fingers made him pause. His
eyes narrowed, and he pulled from Tiamak's bag a pack-
age wrapped in leaves and tied with thin vines. Some of
the covering had dried and peeled away. Miriamele could
see a flash of something pale inside. "What is this?"
Cadrach eased the wrappings back a little further. "A very
old parchment ..." he began.

"No, you demon! You witch!"

The loud voice startled Miriamele so much that she
dropped the blunt rock she had been using as a pestle; it
bounced painfully on her boot and thumped down into the
bottom of the boat. Tiamak, his eyes bulging, was strug-
gling to lift himself.

"You won't have it!" he shouted. Flecks of spittle gath-
ered at the corners of his mouth. "I knew you would
come after it!"

"He's fever-mad!" Isgrimnur was more than a little
alarmed. "Don't let him tip the boat over."

"It's just Cadrach, Tiamak," Miriamele said soothingly.

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER                           607

but she, too, was startled by the look of hatred on the
Wrannaman's face. "He's just trying to find the yellow-
root."

"I know who it is," Tiamak snarled. "And I know just
what he is, too, and what he wants. Curse you, demon-
monk! You wait until I am ill to steal my parchment1
Well, you may not have it! It is mine! I bought it with my
own coin!"

"Just put it back, Cadrach," Miriamele urged. "It will
make him stop raving."

The monk, whose initial look of startlement had
changed to something even more unsettled—and, to
Miriamele, unsettling as well—slowly eased the leaf-
wrapped bundle back into the sack, then handed the
whole thing to Miriamele.

"Here." His voice was once again strangely flat. "You
take out what he wants. I cannot be trusted."

"Oh, Cadrach," she said, "don't be foolish. Tiamak is
ill. He doesn't know what he's saying."

"I know." The Wrannaman's wide eyes were still fixed
on the monk. "He gave himself away. I knew then that he
was after it."

"For the love of Aedon," Isgrimnur growled, disgusted.
"Just give him something to make him sleep. Even /
know the monk wasn't trying to steal anything."

"Even you, Rimmersman?" Cadrach murmured, but
with none of his usual sharpness. Rather, there was an
echo of some great hopelessness in the monk's voice, and
something else, too—some peculiar edge that Miriamele
could not identify.

Worried and confused, she turned her concentra-
tion onto the search for Tiamak's yellowroot. The
Wrannaman, his hair damp and tousled by sweat, contin-
ued to glare at Cadrach like a maddened blue jay who had
found a squirrel sniffing about his nest.

Miriamele had thought the entire incident merely the
product of Tiamak's illness, but that night she woke up
suddenly in the camp they had made on a rare dry sand-

6o8 Tad Williams

bank, and saw Cadrach—who had been delegated the first
watch—rummaging through Tiamak's bag.

"What are you doing?'" She crossed the camp in a few
swift paces. Despite her anger, she kept her voice low so
as not to wake any of the rest of her companions from
their sleep. She could not escape the feeling that some-
how Cadrach was her responsibility alone, and that the
others should not be brought in if she could avoid it.

"Nothing," the monk grumbled, but his guilty face be-
lied him. Miriamele reached forward and plunged her
hand into the sack, closing her fingers on his own and the
leaf-wrapped parchment.

"I should have known better," she said, full of fury. "Is
there truth to what Tiamak said? Have you been trying to
steal his belongings, now that he is too sick to protect
them?"

Cadrach snapped back like a wounded animal. "You
are no better than all the rest, with your talk of friendship!
At the first moment, you turn on me, just like Isgrimnur."

His words stung, but Miriamele was still angry to find
him doing this low thing after she had given him her
trust. "You haven't answered my question."

"You are a fool," he snarled. "If I wanted to steal
something from him, why would I wait until he had been
saved from the ghant's nest?!" He pulled his hand from
the sack, bringing hers with it, then took the package and
thrust it into her hands. "Here! I was merely interested in
what it could be, and why he turned goirach ... why he
became so angry. I had never seen it before—didn't even
know that it was there! You keep it, then. Princess. Safe
from grubby little thieves like me!"

"But you could have asked him," she said, more than a
little ashamed now that the heat had passed, and angry to
feel that way. "Not come creeping after it when everyone
was asleep."

"Oh, yes, asked him! You saw the kindly way he
looked at me when I merely touched it! Do you have any
idea what it is, my headstrong lady? Do you?"

"No. Nor will I until Tiamak tells me." Hesitantly, she
stared at the cylindrical object. In other circumstances,

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER                           609

she knew, she would have been the first to try to find out
what the Wrannaman was protecting. Now, she was
caught by her own high-handedness, and she had of-
fended the monk as well. "I will keep it safe, and I will
not look at it," she said slowly. "When Tiamak is well, I
will ask him to show it to us."

Cadrach stared at her for a long moment. His moonlit
features, touched with crimson by the last few embers of
the fire, were almost frightening. "Very well, my lady,"
he whispered. She thought she could hear his voice hard-
ening like ice. "Very well. By all means keep it out of the
hands of thieves." He turned and walked to his cloak,
then dragged it to the edge of the sand, far from the oth-
ers. "Keep watch, then. Princess Miriamele. Make sure no
evil men come near. I am going to sleep." He lay down,
becoming only another lump of shadow.

Miriamele sat listening to the night noises of the
swamp. Although the monk did not speak again, she
could almost feel his unsleeping presence in the darkness
a few short steps away. Something raw and painful in him
had been exposed again, something that, for the last few
weeks, had been almost completely hidden. Whatever it
was, she had thought it might-have been exorcised after
Cadrach's long revelatory night on Firannos Bay. Now
Miriamele found herself wishing desperately that she had
slept through the night tonight and not awakened until
morning, when the light of day would have made every-
thing safe and ordinary.

*

The Wran fell away at last, not in a single broad stroke,
but with the gradual dwindling of trees and narrowing of
waterways, until finally Miriamele and her companions
found themselves floating across an open scrubland criss-
crossed with small channels. The world was wide again,
something that spread from horizon to horizon. She had
grown so used to the hemming-in of her vision that she
found it almost uncomfortable to be confronted with so
much space.

6lo Tad Williams

In some ways, the last stage of the Wran was the most
treacherous, since they had to carry the boat over land
more frequently than before. Once, Isgrimnur became
stuck in a waist-deep sandhole, and was only rescued by
the combined efforts of Miriamele and Camaris.

The Lake Thrithing lay before them, a vast expanse of
low hills and, except for the ever-present grass, sparse
vegetation. Trees clung near to the hillsides; but for a few
copses of tall pines, they were dwarfish, barely distin-
guishable from bushes. In the late afternoon light it
seemed a lonely, windswept land, a place where few crea-
tures and no people would live by choice.

Tiamak had at last brought them beyond the bounds of
his territorial knowledge, and they found increasing diffi-
culty in choosing streams wide enough to carry the boat.
When the latest channel narrowed beyond the point of
navigability, they clambered from the boat and stood si-
lent for a while, collars lifted against the cold breeze.

"It looks as though it's time to walk." Isgrimnur gazed
out across the wilderness to the north. "This is the Lake
Thrithing, after all, so at least there'll be drinking water,
especially after this year's weather."

"But what about Tiamak?" Miriamele asked. The potion
she had brewed for the Wrannaman had certainly helped,
but it had not provided a miraculous cure: although he was
standing, he was weak and his color was not good.

Isgrimnur shrugged. "Don't know. I suppose we could
wait a few days until he gets better, but I hate to spend
any more time than we need to out here. P'raps we could
make some kind of sling."

Camaris abruptly stooped and put his long hands under
Tiamak's armpits, startling the Wrannaman into a whoop
of surprise. With an astounding absence of effort, the old
man lifted Tiamak high and lowered him onto his shoul-
ders; the Wrannaman, who began to understand in midair,
spread his knees to either side of Camaris' neck, settling
like a pickaback child.

The duke grinned. "There's your answer, looks like. I
don't know how long he can go, but maybe at least until
we can find better shelter. That would be more than fine."

TO GREEN   ANGEL  TOWER                        6ll

They took their belongings from the boat, packing
them in the few cloth sacks they had brought out of Vil-
lage Grove. Tiamak took his own bag and clutched it in
the arm he was not using to hold onto Camaris. He had
not spoken of the bag and its contents again since the in-
cident in the boat, and Miriamele had not yet felt inclined
to press him to reveal what he carried.

With more regret than she had expected, Miriamele and
the others bade a silent farewell to the flatboat and
marched out onto the fringes of the Lake Thrithing.

Camaris proved more than equal to the task of carrying
Tiamak. Although he stopped to rest when the others did,
and moved very slowly through the few patches of
swampy ground that still remained, he kept the same pace
as the less burdened members of the company and did not
seem inordinately tired. Miriamele could not help staring
at him from time to time, full of awe. If he was like this
as an old man, what prodigious feats must he have per-
formed when he was in the bloom of youth? It was
enough to make one believe that all the old legends, even
the wildest ones, might be true after all.

Despite the old man's -uncomplaining strength,
Isgrimnur insisted on taking the Wrannaman onto his own
shoulders for the last hour until sunset- When they stopped
at last to make their camp, the duke was puffing and blow-
ing, and looked as though he regretted his decision.

They made camp while the light was still in the sky,
finding a spot in a grove of low trees and building a fire
from deadwood. The snow that had covered much of the
north had apparently not lingered on the Lake Thrithing,
but as the sun finally dipped below the horizon, the eve-
ning grew cold enough to keep them all huddled by the
fire. Miriamele was suddenly grateful she had not dis-
carded her tattered, travel-stained acolyte's habit.

Chill wind sawed in the branches close over their
heads. The surrounded feeling of the Wran had been re-
placed by a sensation of being dangerously exposed, but
at least the ground beneath them was dry: that, Miriamele
decided, was something to be thankful for, anyway.

6l2 Tad Williams

Tiamak was a little better the next day, and was able to
walk most of the morning before having to be hoisted
onto Camaris' broad shoulders again. Isgrimnur, out of
the confining and confusing swamps, was almost his old
self, full of songs of questionable taste—Miriamele en-
joyed counting how many verses he finished of each be-
fore stopping, flustered, to beg her pardon—and stories of
battles and wonders he had seen. Cadrach, on the other
hand, was as silent as he had been since they had escaped
the Eadne Cloud. When spoken to, he responded, and he
was strangely courteous to Isgrimnur, acting almost as if
they had never had harsh words, but the rest of the day's
trip he might have been as mute as Camaris for all he
contributed. Miriamele did not like the hollow look of
him, but nothing she said or did changed his calm, with-
drawn manner, and at last she gave up.

The low-lying ravel of the Wran had long since disap-
peared behind them: even from the highest of the hills,
there was little to see back on the southern horizon but a
dark smear. As they set up camp in another copse of trees,
Miriamele wondered how far they had come—and, more
important, how long a journey still awaited them-

"How far are we going to have to walk?" she asked
Isgrimnur as they shared a bowl of stew made with dried
Village Grove fish. "Do you know?"

He shook his head. "Not sure, my lady. More than fifty
leagues, perhaps sixty or seventy. A long, long hike, I'm
afraid."

She made a worried face. "That could take weeks."

"What else can we do?" he said, then smiled. "In any
case. Princess, we are far better off than we were—and
closer to Josua."

Miriamele felt a momentary pang. "If he is really
there."

"He is, young one, he is." Isgrimnur squeezed her hand
in his broad paw. "We've come through the worst."

Something awakened Miriamele abruptly in the bruised
light just before dawn. She had scarcely an instant to gather

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER                           613

her wits before she was grabbed by the arm and jerked up-
right. A triumphant voice spoke in rapid Nabbanai.

"Here she is. Dressed like a monk. Lord, as you said."

A dozen men on horseback, several of them carrying
torches, had surrounded them. Isgrimnur, who was sitting
on the ground with one of the horsemen's lances at his
throat, groaned.

"It was my watch!" the duke said bitterly. "My
watch ..."

The man who held Miriamele's arm pulled her a few
steps across the copse toward one of the riders, a tall fig-
ure in a capacious hood, his face invisible in the gray of
night's end. She felt a claw of ice clutch at her.

"So," the rider said in accented Westerling. "So." De-
spite the strange mushiness of his speech, his voice was
unmistakably smug.

Miriamele's horror was wanned a little by anger. "Take
off your hood, my lord. You have no need to play such a
game with me,"

Truly?" The rider's hand rose. "Do you wish to see
what you have done, then?" He pushed the hood back
with a sweeping gesture like a traveling player's. "Am I
as beautiful as you remember me?" asked Aspitis.

Miriamele, despite the soldier's restraining hand, stepped
back. It was hard not to. The earl's face, once so handsome
that, after their first meeting, it had haunted her dreams for
days, was now a distorted ruin. His fine nose was a blob of
flesh skewed to one side like a lump of ill-handled clay. His
left cheekbone had been cracked like an egg and dented in-
ward, so that the torchlight made a shadow in the deep hol-
low. All around his eyes black blood had gathered beneath
the skin and the rumple of scars, as though he wore a mask.
His hair was still beautiful, still golden.

Miriamele swallowed. "I have seen worse," she said
quietly.

Half of Aspitis Proves' mouth curled in an eerie grin,
displaying the stumps of teeth. "I am glad to hear it, my
sweet lady Miriamele, since you will be waking up to it
the rest of your life. Bind her!"

"No!" It was Cadrach who shouted, lurching up from

614

Tad Williams

where he lay in the darkness. A moment later, an arrow shiv-
ered in the gnarled trunk of a tree, a hand-span from his face.

"If he moves again, kill him," said Aspitis calmly. "Per-
haps I should let you kill him anyway—he was as respon-
sible as she for what happened to me, to my ship." He
shook his head slowly, savoring the moment. "Ah, you are
such fools. Princess, you and your monk. Once you had
slipped away into the Wran, what did you think? That I
would let you go? That I would forget what you had done
to me?" He leaned forward, fixing her with bloodshot eyes.
"Where else would you go but north, back to the rest of
your friends? But you forget, my lady, that this is my fief-
dom." He chuckled. "My castle on Lake Eadne is only a
few leagues away. I have been combing these hills, hunting
you for days. I knew you would come."

She felt miserably numb. "How did you get off the ship?"

Aspitis' crooked smirk was horrible. "I was slow to re-
alize what had happened, it is true, but after you had gone
and my men found me, I had them kill the treacherous
Niskie—Aedon burn her! She had finished her devil's
work. She did not even try to escape. After that, the rest
of the kilpa went back over the side—I do not think they
would have had the courage to attack without the sea
witch's spell. We had enough men to row my poor dam-
aged Eadne Cloud to Spenit." He slapped his hands on
his thighs. "Enough. You are mine again. Save your prat-
tling questions until I ask for them."

Full of anger and sorrow over Can Itai's fate,
Miriamele struggled toward him, dragging the soldier
who gripped her arm a full pace forward. "God's curse on
you! What kind of man are you? What kind of knight?
You, with all your talk about the fifty noble families of
Nabban."

"And you, a king's daughter, who willingly gave her-
self to me—who brought me to her bed? Are you so high
and pure?"

She was ashamed that Isgrimnur and the others should
hear, but a sort of high, clear anger followed, sharpening
her thoughts. She spat on the ground. "Will you fight for
me?" she demanded. "Here, before your people and

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER                           6l5

mine? Or will you take me as a sneak thief, as you tried
to take me before—with lies, and with force used against
those who were your guests?"

The earl's eyes narrowed to slits. "Fight for you? What
nonsense is this? Why should I? You are mine, by capture
and maidenhead."

"I will never be yours," she said in her haughtiest
tones. "You are lower than the Thrithings-men, who at
least fight to claim their brides."

"Fight, fight, what trick is this?" Aspitis glared. "Who
would fight for you? One of these old men? The monk?
The little swamp boy?"

Miriamele let her eyes fall closed for a moment, strug-
gling to contain her fury. He was vile, but this was not the
moment to let emotions rule her. "Anyone in this camp
can beat you, Aspitis. You are not a man at all." She
looked around, making sure that she had the attention of
the earl's soldiers, "You are a stealer of women, but you
are no man."

Aspitis' osprey-hilted blade slid from its sheath with a
metallic hiss. He paused. "No, I see your game, Princess.
You are a clever one. You think to make me so maddened
that I kill you here." He laughed. "Ah, to think that a
woman exists who would rather die than wed the Earl of
Eadne." He lifted his hand and touched his shattered face.
"Or rather, to think that you felt that way even before you
did this to me," He held his sword out; the point wavered
in the air not a cubit from her neck. "No, I know what
punishment will best pay you back, and that is marriage.
My castle has a tower that will keep you well. Within the
first hour, you will know its every stone. Think how it
will feel when years have passed."

Miriamele lifted her chin. "So you will not fight for me."

Aspitis slapped his fist on his thigh. "Enough of this! I
grow weary of the joke."

"Do you hear?" Miriamele turned toward the rest of
Aspitis* company, who sat, waiting. "Your master is a
coward."

"Silence!" Aspitis shouted. "I will whip you myself."

"That old man can thrash you," she said, pointing to

6i6 Tad Williams

Camaris. The old knight sat wrapped in his blanket,
watching wide-eyed. He had made no move since Aspitis
and his soldiers had arrived. "Isgrimnur," she called,
"give the old man your sword."

"Princess ..." Isgrimnur's voice was rough with won-y-
"Let me ..."

"Do it! Let the earl's men see him cut to ribbons by an
old, old man. Then they will know why their master has
to steal women."

Isgrimnur, keeping a careful eye on the watching sol-
diers, pulled Kvalnir out from beneath his sack of belong-
ings. The buckles of the sword belt clinked as he slid it
across the ground toward Camaris. For a moment, that
was the only sound.

"My lord?" the soldier who held Miriamele said hesi-
tantly. "What... ?"

"Shut your mouth," Aspitis snapped as he dismounted.
He walked to Miriamele and grabbed her face with his
hand, staring at her intently for a moment- Then, before
she had a chance to react, he leaned forward suddenly and
kissed her with his broken mouth. "We will have many
interesting nights." The earl then turned to Camaris. "Go
on, put it on so I can kill you. Then I will finish the rest
of you, too. But I will allow you to defend yourselves or
run as you choose." He turned and looked at Miriamele.
"I am, after all, a gentleman."

Camaris stared at the sword by his feet as though it
were a serpent.

"Put it on!" Miriamele urged.

Elysia 's mercy, she thought frantically, what if he won't
do it! What if, after all this, he won't do it?

"For the love of God, man, put it on," Isgrimnur shouted.
The old man looked at him, then bent and picked up the
sword belt. He withdrew Kvalnir and let the belt and sheath
slide back to the ground. He held it loosely, unwillingly.

"Matra sd Duos," Aspitis said disgustedly, "he does
not even know how to swing a sword." He unbelted his
robe and let it fall, revealing a surcoat of yellow-gray
trimmed in black, then took a few steps toward Camaris,
who looked up bemusedly. "I will kill him quickly,

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER                           617

Miriamele." the earl declared. "You are the cruel one, to
make an old man fight." He raised his weapon, which
gleamed beneath the white dawn sky, then aimed a cut at
Camaris' unprotected neck.

Kvalnir rose awkwardly and Aspitis' blade rebounded.
The earl, with a noise of irritation, swung again. Once
more his steel clanked against the duke's sword and flew
back. Miriamele heard her warder grunt in soft surprise at
his master's frustration.

"You see!" she said, and forced herself to laugh,
though there was no mirth in her. "The coward earl can-
not even best a man in his dotage."

Aspitis attacked more strongly. Camaris, moving al-
most like a man sleepwalking, kept Kvalnir weaving be-
fore him in deceptively slow arcs. Several more wicked
blows were deflected.

"I see your old man has wielded a sword." The earl
was beginning to breathe a little more heavily. "That is
good. I will not feel that I have been forced to kill one
who cannot defend himself."

"Fight back!" Miriamele shouted, but Camaris would
not. Instead, as his movements became more fluid, an-
cient reflexes gradually awakening after a long sleep, he
merely defended himself more diligently, blocking every
thrust, guiding every slash away, spinning a web of steel
that Aspitis could not breach.

The fighting was in deadly earnest now. It was plain that
the Earl of Eadne and Drina was a very good swordsman,
and he in turn had quickly grasped the fact that his oppo-
nent was something unusual. Aspitis eased his attack, pur-
suing a more cautious, probing strategy, but he did not
back down from the challenge. Something, whether pride
or some deeper, more animalistic urge, had caught him up.
Camaris, meanwhile, seemed to fight only because he was
forced to. Miriamele thought she saw several times when
he could have pressed his own attack but chose not to,
waiting until his enemy came at him once more.

Aspitis feinted, then slid in a thrust beneath Camaris'
guard, but somehow Kvalnir was there to push the earl's
blade aside. Aspitis cut at the old man's feet, but Camaris

6i8 Tad Williams

shuffled back without visible haste, keeping his balance
firm and his shoulders level even as he avoided the earl's
blow. He was like water, flowing always to where there
was an opening, giving way but never breaking, absorb-
ing every blow from Aspitis and directing its force up or
down, to one side or the other. A thin film of sweat broke
on the old man's forehead, but his face remained calmly
regretful, as though he were being forced to sit and watch
two of his friends trade unpleasant words.

The duel went on for what seemed to Miriamele a dread-
fully long time. Although she knew that her heart was rac-
ing, each beat seemed to come long moments apart. The
two men, the crack-faced earl and the tall, long-legged
Camaris, worked their way out from the stand of pine trees
and down onto the hillside, circling their way along the
weedy slope like two moths revolving around a candle,
their blades whirling and flickering beneath the gray sky.
As the earl pressed forward once again, Camaris stepped in
a hole and lost his balance; Aspitis took advantage of the
opportunity and landed a swipe across the old man's arm,
drawing a streak of blood. Behind her, Miriamele heard
Isgrimnur curse in heartbreaking impotence.

The cut seemed to awaken something in Camaris. Al-
though he still would not attack aggressively, he began to
beat back the earl's attacks with greater strength, striking
hard enough to make the rattle of steel echo across the
plains of the Lake Thrithing. Miriamele worried that it
would not be enough, since despite his almost unbeliev-
able fortitude, he seemed to be tiring at last. He stumbled
again, this time with no hole to blame, and Aspitis
brought home a thrust that skimmed off Kvalnir and
found Camaris' shoulder, freeing more blood. But the earl
was flagging, too: after a swift flurry in which several of
his strokes were blocked, he took a few steps back, pant-
ing, and bent low to the ground as if he might collapse.
Miriamele saw him pick something from the ground.

"Camaris! Watch out!" she screamed.

Aspitis flung the handful of dirt in the old man's face
and followed it with a swift and aggressive attack, seeking
to end the combat with a single stroke. Camaris staggered

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER                           619

backward, clawing at his eyes as Aspitis closed with him.
A moment later, the earl fell to his knees, yowling.

Camaris, his greater reach enabling him to extend past
the earl's outstretched blade, had struck his opponent a
flat blow across the upper arm, but the blade had bounced
and continued upward, slashing diagonally across the
earl's forehead. Aspitis, his face quickly vanishing behind
a sheet of blood, scrabbled across the ground toward
Camaris, still waving his blade before him. The old man,
who was rubbing the dirt from his watering eyes, stepped
aside and brought the hilt of his sword down atop the
earl's head. Aspitis dropped like a maul-slaughtered ox.

Miriamele pulled free from the grip of her thunderstruck
guard and dashed down the hillside. Camaris sank to the
ground, gasping for breath. He looked tired and vaguely
unhappy, like a child asked to do too much. Miriamele
glanced at him quickly to make sure his wounds were not
dangerous, then took Kvalnir from his unresisting grasp
and kneeled down beside Aspitis. The earl was breathing,
too, although shallowly. She turned him over, staring for a
moment at his bloody, shattered-doll face ... and some-
thing changed inside of her. A bubble of hatred and fear
that had been in her since the'Eadne Cloud, a bubble that
had grown chokingly large at finding Aspitis still pursuing
her, abruptly burst. Suddenly, he seemed so small. He was
nothing important at all, Just a tattered, damaged
thing—no different than the cloak draped over a chair-
back that had given her the screaming night-terrors when
she was a small child. Morning's light had come, and the
demon had become a rumpled cloak again.

A sort of smile crossed Miriamele's face. She pressed
the sword blade against the earl's throat.

"You men!" she shouted at Aspitis' soldiers. "Do you
want to explain to Benigaris how his best friend was
killed?"

Isgrimnur stood, pushing away the lance-point of the
soldier who had held him.

"Do you?" Miriamele demanded.

None of the earl's men spoke.

620 Tad Williams

"Then give us your bows—all of them. And four

horses."

"We will not give you any horses, witch!" one of the
soldiers shouted angrily.

"So be it- Then you can take Aspitis back with his gul-
let slit and tell Duke Benigaris it was done by an old man
and a girl, while you stood watching—that is, if you get
away unharmed, and you will have to kill us all to do

that."

"Do not bargain with them," Cadrach shouted sud-
denly. There was desperation in his tone. "Kill the
monster. Kill him!"

"Be quiet." Miriamele wondered if the monk was try-
ing to convince the soldiers that the danger to their master
was real. If so, he was a fine actor: he sounded remarka-
bly sincere.

The soldiers looked at each other worriedly. Isgrimnur
took advantage of the moment's confusion to begin re-
lieving them of their bows and arrows. After the
Rimmersman growled at him, Cadrach scrambled forward
to help. Several of the men cursed them and looked as
though they wished to resist, but no one made the move
that would have sparked open conflict. When Isgrimnur
and the monk each had an arrow nocked on a bow, the
soldiers began to talk angrily among themselves, but
Miriamele could see that the fight had gone out of them.

"Four horses," she said calmly. "I will do you a favor
and ride with the man that this scum," she prodded
Aspitis' still form, "called a 'swamp boy.' Otherwise you
would be leaving us five."

After more arguing, Aspitis' troop turned over four
horses, first removing the saddlebags. When riders and
baggage were redistributed upon the remaining horses, two
of the earl's household guard came forward and lifted their
liege-lord from the ground, then draped him unceremoni-
ously across the saddle of one of the remaining horses. His
soldiers had to ride two-to-a-mount, and looked positively
embarrassed as the little caravan rode off,

"And if he lives," Miriamele shouted after them, "re-
mind him of what happened!"

621

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

The mounted company vanished quickly, riding east
into the hills.

Wounds were tended, the newly-acquired horses were
loaded with the travelers' scant baggage, and by the mid-
dle of the day they were on their way once more.
Miriamele felt curiously light-headed, as though she had
just woken up from a terrible dream to find a sunny
spring morning outside her window. Camaris had returned
to his normal placidity; the old man seemed scarcely the
worse for his experience. Cadrach did not speak much,
but that was no different than any day of the last few.

Aspitis had been a shadow at the back of Miriamele's
mind since the night of the storm and her escape from the
earl's ship. Now that shadow was gone. As she rode
across the hilly Thrithings-country with Tiamak nodding
in the saddle before her, she almost felt like singing.

They covered several leagues that afternoon. When
they stopped for the night, Isgrimnur, too, was in an ex-
cellent mood.

"We shall make far better time now. Princess." He was
grinning in his beard. If he thought less of her now that
Aspitis had revealed her shame, he was too much a gen-
tleman to show it. "By Dror's Mallet, did you see
Camaris? Did you see him? Like a man half his age."

"Yes." She smiled. The duke was a good man. "I saw
him, Isgrimnur. It was like an old song. No, it was better."

He woke her in the morning. She could tell by his face
that something was wrong.

"Is it Tiamak?" She had a sickened feeling. They had
come through so much! Surely the little man had been
getting better?

The duke shook his head. "It's the monk. He's gone."

"Cadrach?" Miriamele was not prepared for that. She
rubbed her head, fighting to wake up. "What do you
mean. gone?"

"Gone away. Took one of the horses. He left a note."
Isgrimnur pointed to a piece of the Village Grove cloth
which lay on the ground near where she had been sleep-

622 Tad Williams

ing; the furl of cloth had been anchored by a rock against
the stiff hillside breeze.

Where Miriamele's feelings about Cadrach's flight should
have been, there was nothing. She lifted the stone and
spread the sheet of pale fabric. Yes, he had written this: she
had seen Cadrach's hand before. It looked as though he had
done his writing with the burned tip of a twig.

What could have been so important to say, she won-
dered, that he spent so much time writing a note before he
left?

Princess,
it said,

I cannot go with you to Josua. I do not belong
with those people. Do not blame yourself. No one
has been kinder to me than you, even after you
knew me for what I am.

I fear that things are worse than you know, much
worse. I wish there was something more that 1
could do, but I am unable to help anyone.

He had not signed it.

"What 'things'?" Isgrimnur asked, irritated. He was
reading over her shoulder. "What does he mean, 'things
are worse than you know'?"

Miriamele shrugged helplessly. "Who can say?" De-
serted again, was all she could think.

"Maybe I was too hard on him," the duke said gruffly.
"But that's no cause to steal a horse and ride off."

"He was always afraid. Ever since I have known him.
It's hard to live with fear all the time."

"Well, we can't waste tears on him," Isgrimnur grum-
bled. "We have troubles of our own."

"No," Miriamele said, folding the note, "we shouldn't
waste tears."

20

Travelers cmst Messengers

*

"1 have not been here for many seasons," Aditu said.
"Many, many seasons."

She stopped and raised her hands, circling the fingers
in a complicated gesture; her slim body swayed like a
dowser's rod. Simon watched in wonder and more than a
little apprehension. He was quickly becoming sober.

"Shouldn't you come down?" he asked.

Aditu only glanced down at him, a moonlit smile play-
ing around the comers of her mouth, then turned her eyes
upward to the sky once more. She tock a few more steps
along the Observatory's slender, crumbling parapet.
"Shame to the House of Year-Dancing," she said. "We
should have done more to preserve this place. It grieves
me to see it fallen to pieces."

Simon did not think she sounded very grieved. "Geloe
calls this place the Observatory," Simon said. "Why is
that?"

"I do not know. What is 'observatory'? It is not a word
that I know in your tongue."

"Father Strangyeard said it's a place like they used to
have in Nabban in the days of the Imperators—a tall
building where they look at the stars and try to figure out
what will happen."

Aditu laughed and raised one foot in the air to take off
her boot, then lowered it and did the same with the other,
as calmly as though she stood on the ground beside Si-
mon instead of twenty cubits in the air on a thin cornice
of stone. She tossed the boots down. They thumped softly

624                   Tad Williams

on the damp grass. "Then she is making fun, I think, al-
though there is some meaning behind her jest. No one
looked at the stars here, except as one would look at them
anywhere. This was the place of the Rhao iye-Sama'an—
the Master Witness."

"Master Witness?" Simon wished she wouldn't move
along the slippery parapet so quickly. For one thing, it
forced him to walk briskly just to stay within hearing. For
another ... well, it was dangerous, even if she didn't
think so. "What's that?"

"You know what a Witness is, Simon. Jiriki gave you
his mirror. That is a minor Witness, and there are many of
those still in existence. There were only a few Master
Witnesses, each more or less bound to a place—the Pool
of Three Depths in Asu'a, the Speakfire in Hikehikayo,
the Green Column in Jhina-T'senei—and most of those
are broken or ruined or lost. Here at Sesuad'ra it was a
great stone beneath the ground, a stone called the Earth-
Drake's Eye. Earth-Drake is another name—it is difficult
to explain the differences between the two in your
tongue—for the Greater Worm who bites at his own tail,"
she explained. "We built this entire place on top of that
stone. It was not quite a Master Witness—in fact, it was
not even a Witness by itself, but such was its potency that
a minor Witness like my brother's mirror would be a
Master Witness if used here."

Simon's head was whirling with names and ideas.
"What does that mean, Aditu?" he asked, trying to keep
from sounding cross. He had been doing his best to re-
main calm and well-spoken once the wine had begun to
wear off. It seemed important that she see how much he
had grown in the months since they had last met.

"A minor Witness will lead you onto the Road of
Dreams, but will usually show you only those you know,
or those who are looking for you." She raised her left leg
and leaned backward, her back arched like a drawn long-
bow as she bent gracefully into balance, looking for all
the world like a little girl playing on a waist-high fence.
"A Master Witness, if used by someone who knew the

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER                           625

ways of it, could look on anyone or anything, and some-
times into other times and ... other places."

Simon could not help remembering the night-visions of
his vigil, as well as what he had seen when he had
brought Jiriki's mirror to this place on a later night. He
pondered this as he watched Aditu tilt backward until her
palms touched the crumbling stone. A moment later, both
her feet were in the air as she swayed upside down, stand-
ing on her hands.

"Aditu!" Simon said sharply, then tried to make his
voice calm. "Shouldn't we go see Josua now?"

She laughed again, a swift sound of pure animal plea-
sure. "My frightened Seoman. No, there is no need to
hurry to Josua, as I told you on the way here. The tidings
from my folk can wait until morning. Give your prince a
night of rest from worries. From what I saw of him, he
needs some relief from woe and care." She inched along
on her hands. Her hair, unbound, hung down over her
face in a white cloud.

Simon felt sure she could no longer see what she was
doing. It frustrated him and made him more than a little
angry. "Then why did you come all the way from Jao
e-Tinukai'i, if it wasn't important?" He stopped follow-
ing. "Aditu! What are you doing this for?! If you've
come to talk to Josua, then let's go and talk to Josua!"

"I did not say it was not important, Seoman," she re-
plied. There was something of her old mocking tone, but
there was a hint of something sharper, almost angry. "I
merely said that it would best wait until tomorrow. And
that is what will happen." She brought her knees down
between her elbows and delicately placed her feet be-
tween her hands. Then she lifted her arms and stood up
all in one motion, as though preparing to dive out into
empty space. "So until then I will spend my time as /
please, no matter what a young mortal might think."

Simon was stung. "You've been sent to bring news to
the prince, but you'd rather do tumbling tricks."

Aditu was wintery-cool. "In fact, if I had been given
my choice, I would not be here at all. I would have ridden
with my brother to Hemystir."

626 Tad Williams

"Well, why didn't you?"

"Likimeya willed otherwise."

So quickly that Simon barely had time to draw in a sur-
prised breath, she bent, catching the parapet in one long-
fingered hand, then dropped over the edge. She found a
grip on the pale stone wall with her free hand and lodged
the toe of one bare foot while probing with the other. She
descended the rest of the way as quickly and effortlessly
as a squirrel skittering down a tree trunk.

"Let us go inside," she said.

Simon laughed and felt his anger ease.

Standing beside the Sitha made the Observatory seem
even eerier. The shadowed staircases which wound up the
walls of the cylindrical room made him think of the in-
sides of some huge animal. The tiles, even in the near-
darkness, glimmered faintly, and seemed to be assembled
in patterns that would not quite lie still.

It was odd to realize that Aditu was almost as much a
youngling as he, since the Sithi had built this place long
before her birth. Jiriki had once said that he and his sister
were "children of the Exile," which Simon understood to
mean that they had been bom after the fall of Asu'a five
centuries ago—a short time indeed in Sithi terms. But Si-
mon had also met Amerasu, and she had come to Osten
Ard before a single stone had been set on another stone
anywhere in the land. And if his own vigil-night dream
had been correct, Amerasu's elder Utuk'ku had stood in
this very building when the two tribes had separated. It
was disturbing to think of anything living as long as First
Grandmother or the Nom Queen.

But the most disturbing thing of all was that the Nom
Queen, unlike Amerasu, was still alive, still powerful ...
and she seemed to have nothing but hatred for Simon and
his mortal kind.

He did not like thinking about that—did not, in fact,
like thinking about the Nom Queen at all. It was almost
easier to understand crazed Ineluki and his violent anger
than the spiderlike patience of Utuk'ku, someone who
would wait a thousand years or more, full of brooding
malice, for some obscure revenge....

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

627

"And what did you think of war, Seoman Snowlock?"
Aditu asked suddenly. He had sketched for her the bare
outlines of the recent struggle as they exchanged news
during their walk to the Observatory.

He considered. "We fought hard. It was a wonderful
victory. We didn't expect it."

"No, what did you think?"

Simon took a moment before replying. "It was horri-
ble."

"Yes, it is." Aditu took a few steps away from him,
sliding into a spot beneath the wall where the moonlight
did not penetrate, vanishing into shadow. "It is horrible."

"But you just said you wanted to go to war in Hernystir
with Jiriki!"

"No. I said I wanted to be with them. That is not the
same thing at all, Seoman, I could have been one more
rider, one more bow, one more set of eyes. We are very
few, we Zida'ya—even mustered together riding out of
Jao e-Tinukai'i, with the Houses of Exile reunited. Very
few. And none of us wished to go into battle."

"But you Sithi have been in wars," Simon protested. "I
know that's true."

"Only to protect ourselves. And once or twice in our
history, as my mother and brother are doing in the west
now, we have fought to protect those who stood by us in
our own need." She sounded very serious now. "But even
now, Seoman, we have only taken up our arms because
the Hikeda'ya brought the war to us. They entered our
home and killed my father and First Grandmother, and
many more of our folk as well. Do not think that we rush
out to fight for mortals at the waving of a sword. These
are strange days, Seoman—and you know that as well as
I."

Simon took a few steps forward and tripped on a piece
of broken stone. He bent to rub his toe, which throbbed
painfully. "S'Bloody Tree!" he cursed under his breath.

"It is hard for you to see here at night, Seoman," she
said. "I am sorry. We will go now."

Simon did not want to be babied. "In a moment. I'm

628 Tad Williams

well." He gave the toe a final squeeze. "Why is Utuk'ku
helping Ineluki?"

Aditu appeared from out of the moon-shadow and took
his hand in her cool fingers. She seemed troubled. "Let us
talk outside." She led him out the door. Her long hair
lifted and fluttered in the wind, caressing his face as he
walked beside her. It had a strong but pleasing scent,
savory-sweet as pine bark.

When they were out on open ground once more, she
took his other hand in hers and fixed him with her bright
eyes, which seemed to gleam amber in the moonlight.
"That is most certainly not the place to name their names,
nor to think of them too much," she said firmly, then
smiled a wicked smile. "Besides, I do not think I should
let as dangerous a mortal boy as you be alone with me in
a dark place. Oh, the tales they tell of you around your
camp, Seoman Snowlock."

He was irritated but not altogether displeased. "Who-
ever 'they' are, they don't know what they're talking
about."

"Ah, but you are a strange beast, Seoman." Without an-
other word, she leaned forward and kissed him—not a
short, chaste touch as she had given him at their parting
many weeks ago, but a warm lover's kiss that sent a
shiver of amazement running up his back. Her lips were
cool and sweet as morning rose petals.

Far before he would have wished to stop, Aditu gently
pulled away. 'That little mortal girl liked kissing you,
Seoman." Her smile returned, mocking, insolent. "It is an
odd thing to do, is it not?"

Simon shook his head, at a loss.

Aditu took his arm and tugged him into motion, falling
into step beside him. She bent to pick up the boots she
had discarded, then they walked a little farther through
the wet grass beside the Observatory wall. She hummed a
brief snatch of melody before speaking. "What does
Utuk'ku want, you asked?"

Simon, confused by what had happened, did not re-
spond.

"That I could not tell you—not with certainty. She is

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

629

the oldest thinking creature in all of Osten Ard, Seoman,
and she is far more than twice as old as the next most an-
cient. Be assured, her ways are strange and subtle beyond
even the understanding of anyone except perhaps First
Grandmother. But if I had to guess, I would say this: she
longs for Unbeing."

"What does that mean?" Simon was beginning to won-
der if he was truly sober after all, for the world was
slowly spinning and he wanted to lie down and sleep.

"If she wished death," Aditu said, "then that would be
oblivion just for herself. She is tired of living, Seoman,
but she is eldest. Never forget that. As long as songs have
been sung in Osten Ard, and longer, Utuk'ku has lived.
She alone of any living thing saw the lost home that
birthed our kind. I do not think she can bear to think of
others living when she is gone. She cannot destroy every-
thing, much as she might desire to, but perhaps she hopes
to help create the greatest cataclysm possible—that is, to
assure that as many living folk accompany her into obliv-
ion as she can drag with her."

Simon stopped, horrified. "That's terrible!" he said
with feeling.

Aditu shrugged, a sinuous gesture. She had a lovely
neck. "Utuk'ku is terrible. She is mad, Seoman, although
it is a madness as tightly woven and intricate as the finest
juya'ha ever spun. She was perhaps the cleverest of all
the Gardenborn."

The moon had freed itself from a bank of clouds; it
hung overhead like a harvester's scythe. Simon wanted to
go to sleep—his head felt very heavy—but at the same
time he was loath to give up this chance. It was so rare to
find one of the Sithi in a mood to answer questions, and
even better, to answer them directly, without the usual
Sithi vagueness.

"Why did the Noms go into the north?"

Aditu bent and picked a sprig of some curling vine,
white-flowered and dark-leaved. She knotted it in her hair
so that it hung against her cheek. "The two families,
Zida'ya and Hikeda'ya, had a disagreement. It concerned
mortals. Utuk'ku's folk felt your kind to be animals—

630 Tad Williams

worse than animals, actually, since we of the Garden do
not kill any creature if we can avoid doing so. The Dawn
Children did not agree with the Cloud Children. There
were other things, too." She lifted her head to the moon.
'Then Nenais'u and Drukhi died. That was the day the
shadow fell, and it has never been lifted."

No sooner had he congratulated himself on catching
Aditu in a forthright mood than she had begun to grow
obscure.... Still, Simon did not linger over her unsatisfy-
ing explanation. He did not really want any more names
to learn—he was already overwhelmed with all the things
she had told him tonight; in any case, he had another pur-
pose in asking. "And when the two families parted," he
said eagerly, "it was here, wasn't it? All the Sithi came to
the Fire Garden with torches. And then in Leavetaking
House they stood around some thing built of glowing fire
and made their bargain."

Aditu lowered her eyes from the sliver of moon, fixing
him with her cat-bright stare. "Who told you this tale?"

"I saw it!" He was almost sure by the look on her face
mat he had been right. "I saw it when I had my vigil. The
night I became a knight." He laughed at his own words.
Fatigue was making him feel silly. "My knight-night."

"Saw it?" Aditu folded her hand around his wrist. "Tell
me, Seoman. We will walk a little while longer."

He described his dream-vision for her—then, for good
measure, he told her of what had happened later when he
used Jiriki's mirror.

"What happened when you brought the Scale here
shows that there is still potency in Rhao iye-Sama'an"
she said slowly. "But my brother was right to warn you
off the Dream Road. It is very dangerous now—otherwise
I would take the glass and try to find Jiriki myself, to-
night, and tell him of what you told me."

"Why?"

She shook her head. Her hair drifted like smoke, "Be-
cause of the thing you saw during your vigil. That is
fearful. For you to see something from the Elder Days,
without a Witness .. -" She made another of her strange
finger gestures, this one tangled and complex as a basket

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER                           63]

of wriggling fish. "Either you have things in you that
Amerasu did not see—but I cannot believe that First
Grandmother, even in her preoccupation, would fail so
abjectly—or there is something happening beyond any-
thing we suspected. That worries me greatly. For the
Earth-Drake's Eye to show a vision of the past that way,
unbidden . . ." She sighed. Simon stared. She looked
worried—something he would not have believed possible.

"Maybe it was the dragon's blood," Simon offered. He
raised his hand to indicate his scar and shock of white
hair. "Jiriki said I was marked somehow."

"Perhaps." Aditu did not seem convinced. Simon felt
slightly insulted. So she didn't think he was special
enough, did she?

They walked on until they had crossed back over the
ruptured tiles of the Fire Garden and were approaching
the tent city. Most of the merrymakers had gone to their
beds; only a few fires still burned. Beside them, a few
shadowy shapes still talked and laughed and sang.

"Go and rest, Seoman," Aditu said. "You are stagger-
ing."

He wanted to argue, but knew that what she said was
true. "Where will you sleep?'"

Her serious expression changed to one of genuine
amusement. "Sleep? No, Snowlock, I will walk tonight. I
have much to think about. In any case, I have not seen the
moon on Sesuad'ra's broken stones for almost a century."
She reached out and squeezed his hand. "Sleep well. In
the morning we will go to Josua." She turned and walked
away, silent as dew. Within moments she was only a slen-
der shadow disappearing across the grassy hilltop.

Simon rubbed at his face with both hands. There was
so much to think about. What a night this had been! He
yawned and headed toward the tents of New Gadrinsett.

A

"A strange thing has happened, Josua."

Geloe stood in the door of his tent, unusually hesitant.

"Come in, please." The prince turned to Vorzheva, who

632 Tad Williams

was sitting up in bed beneath a mound of blankets. "Or per-
haps you would prefer we go elsewhere?" he asked his wife.

Vorzheva shook her head. "I do not feel well today, but
if I must lie here this morning, at least there will be some
people to keep me company."

"But perhaps Valada Geloe's news will distress you,"
the prince said worriedly. He looked to the wise woman.
"Can she hear it?"

Geloe's smile was sardonic. "A woman with a baby in-
side her is not like someone who is dying of old age,
Prince Josua. Women are strong—bearing a child is hard
work. Besides, this news should not frighten anyone ...
even you." She softened her expression to let him know
she was joking.

Josua nodded. "I deserved that, I suppose." His own
answering smile was wan. "What strange thing has hap-
pened? Please, come in."

Geloe shrugged off her dripping cloak and dropped it
just inside the doorway. A light rain had begun to fall
soon after dawn, and had been pattering on the tent roof
for the better part of an hour. Geloe ran her hand through
her wet, cropped hair, then seated herself on one of the
stools Freosel had built for the prince's residence- "I have
just received a message."

"From whom?"

"I do not know. It came to me with one of Dinivan's
birds, but the writing is not his hand." She reached into
her jacket and pulled forth a bundle of damp feathers,
which softly cheeped; its black eye gleamed through the
gap between her fingers- "Here is what it bore." She held
up a small curl of oilcloth. With some difficulty, she man-
aged to pull a twist of parchment from the cloth and open
it without unduly discommoding the bird-

"Prince Josua."

she read,

"Certain
for you

in signs tell me that it may be propitious
< to begin thinking about Nabban. Certain

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER                           633

mouths have whispered in my ear that you might
find more support there than you suspect. The
kingfishers have been taking too much of the
boatmen's catch. A messenger will arrive within
a fortnight, bearing words that will speak more
clearly than this brief message can. Do nothing
until that one has arrived, for your own fortune's
sake."

Geloe looked up as she finished reading, her yellow
eyes wary. "It is signed only with the ancient Nabbanai
rune for 'Friend.' Someone who is either a Scrollbearer or
of equivalent learning wrote this. Perhaps someone who
would wish us to believe that a Scrollbearer wrote it."

Josua gave Vorzheva's hand a gentle squeeze before he
stood up. "May I see it?" Geloe gave him the note, which
he scrutinized for a moment before handing it back. "1
do not recognize the hand, either." He took a few steps
toward the tent's far wall, then turned and paced back to-
ward the door. "The writer is obviously suggesting that
there is unrest in Nabban, that the Benidrivine House is
not as loved as it once was—not surprising with
Benigaris in the saddle and Nessalanta pulling the reins.
But what could this person want of me? You say it came
to you with Dinivan's bird?"

"Yes. And that is what most worries me." Geloe was
about to say more when there was an apologetic cough
from the doorway. Father Strangyeard stood there, the
wisp of red hair atop his head plastered to his skull by
rainwater.

"Your pardon. Prince Josua." He saw Vorzheva and
colored. "Lady Vorzheva. Goodness. I hope you can for-
give my ... my intrusion."

"Come in, Strangyeard." The prince beckoned as
though to summon a skittish cat. Behind him, Vorzheva
smiled to show she did not mind.

"I asked him to come, Josua," said Geloe. "Since it
was Dinivan's bird—well, you can understand, I think."

"Of course." He waved the archivist to one of the va-
cant stools. "Now, tell me about the birds. I remember

634

Tad Williams

what you told me about Dinivan himself—although I can
still scarcely credit that the lector's secretary would be
part of such a company."

Geloe looked a little impatient. "The League of the
Scroll is a thing that many would be proud to be part of,
and Dinivan's master would never have been troubled by
anything that he did on its behalf." Her eyelids towered as
some new thought came to her. "But the lector is dead, if
the rumors that have come to us here are true. Some say
that worshipers of the Storm King murdered him,"

"I have heard of these Fire Dancers, yes," Josua said.
"Those of New Gadrinsett who fled here from the south
can talk of little else."

"But the troubling thing is that since this rumored ev-
ent, I have heard nothing from Dinivan," Geloe contin-
ued. "So who would have his birds, if not him? And if he
survived the attack on the lector—I am told there was a
great fire in the Sancellan Aedonitis—then why would he
not write himself ?"

"Perhaps he was burned or injured," Strangyeard said
diffidently. "He might have had someone else write on his
behalf."

"True," Geloe mused, "but then I think he would have
used his name, unless he is somehow so frightened of dis-
covery that he cannot even send a message by bird that
bears his rune."

"So if it is not Dinivan," said Josua, "then we must ac-
cept that this could be a trick. The very ones who were
responsible for the lector's death may have sent this."

Vorzheva raised herself a little higher in the bed. "It
could be not either of those things. Someone who found
Dinivan's birds could send it for their own reasons."

Geloe nodded slowly. "True. But it would have to be
someone who knew who Dinivan's friends were, and
where they might be: this message has your husband's
name at the top of it, as though whoever sent it knew it
would come straight to him."

Josua was pacing again. "I have thought about
Nabban," he muttered. "So many times. The north is a
wasteland—I doubt Isom and the others will find more

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER                           635

than a token force at best. The people have been scattered
by war and weather. But if we could somehow drive
Benigaris out of Nabban ..." He stopped and stared up at
the tent ceiling, frowning. "We could raise an army, then,
and ships.... We would have a real chance to thwart my
brother." His frown deepened. "But who can know
whether this is real or not? I do not like to have someone
pull at my strings like this." He slapped his hand against
his leg. "Aedon! Why can nothing be simple?"

Geloe shifted on her stool. The wise woman's voice
was surprisingly sympathetic. "Because nothing is sim-
ple, Prince Josua."

"Whatever it is," Vorzheva pointed out, "whether it is
a true thing or a lie, it says that a messenger will be sent.
Then we will learn more."

"Perhaps," Josua said. "If it is not just a ploy to keep
us hesitant, to make us delay."

"But that does not seem likely, if you will pardon my
saying so," Strangyeard piped up. "Which of our enemies
is so powerless that they would stoop that low... ?" He
trailed off, looking at Josua's hard, distracted face. "I
mean ..."

"I think that makes sense, Strangyeard," Geloe agreed.
"It is a weak play, and I think Elias and his ... ally ...
are beyond such things."

"Then you should not hurry to have your Raed, Josua."
There was something like triumph in Vorzheva's voice.
"It would not make sense to have plans until you know if
this is true or not. You must wait for this messenger. At
least a little while."

The prince turned to her; a look passed between them,
and although the others did not know what the silence be-
tween husband and wife meant, they waited. At last Josua
nodded stiffly.

"I suppose that is true," he said. 'The note says a fort-
night. I will wait that long before calling the Raed."

Vorzheva smiled in satisfaction.

"I agree. Prince Josua," said Geloe. "But there is still
much that we do not ..."

She stopped as Simon appeared in the doorway. When

636

Tad Williams

he did not immediately enter, Josua beckoned to him im-
patiently. '^Come in, Simon, come in. We are discussing a
strange message, and what may be an even stranger mes-
senger."

Simon started. "Messenger?"

"A letter was sent to us, perhaps from Nabban. Come
in. Do you need something?"

The tall youth swallowed. "Perhaps now is not the best
time."

"I can assure you," Josua said dryly, "there is nothing
that you could ask me that would not seem simple when
set beside the quandaries I have already discovered to-
day."

Simon still seemed hesitant. "Well ..." he said, then
stepped inside. Someone followed him in.

"Blessed Elysia, Mother of our Ransomer,"
Strangyeard said in a curiously choked voice.

"No. My mother named me Aditu," replied Simon's
companion. For all her fluency, her Westerling was
strangely accented; it was hard to tell whether she meant
mockery or not.

She was slender as a lance, with hungry golden eyes
and a great spilling froth of snowy white hair tied with a
gray band. Her clothes were white, too, so that she
seemed almost to glow in the shadowed tent, as though a
little piece of the winter sun had rolled through the door-
way.

"Aditu is my friend Jiriki's sister. She's a Sitha," Si-
mon added unnecessarily.

"By the Tree," Josua said. "By the Holy Tree."

Aditu laughed, a fluid, musical noise. "Are these things
you all say magical charms to chase me away? If so, they
do not seem to be working."

The witch woman stood. Her weathered face worked
through an unreadable mixture of emotions. "Welcome,
Dawn Child," she said slowly. "I am Geloe."

Aditu smiled, but gently. "I know who you are. First
Grandmother spoke of you."

Geloe lifted her hand as if to touch this apparition.
"Amerasu was dear to me, although I never met her face-

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER                           637

to-face. When Simon told me what had happened ..."
Astonishingly, tears formed and trembled on her lashes.
"She will be missed, your First Grandmother."

Aditu inclined her head for a moment. "She is missed.
All the world moums her."

Josua stepped forward. "Forgive me my discourtesy,
Aditu," he said, pronouncing the name carefully. "I am
Josua. Besides Valada Geloe, these others are my wife,
the lady Vorzheva, and Father Strangyeard," He ran his
hand across his eyes. "Can we offer you something to eat
or drink?"

Aditu bowed. "Thank you, but I drank from your
spring just before dawn and I am not hungry. I have a
message from my mother, Likimeya, Lady of the House
of Year-Dancing, which you may be interested to hear."

"Of course." Josua could not seem to help staring at
her. Behind him, Vorzheva was also staring at the new-
comer, although her expression was different than the
prince's. "Of course," he repeated. "Sit down, please."

The Sitha sank to the floor in a single movement, light
as thistledown. "Are you certain this is a good time,
Prince Josua?" Her tuneful voice contained a hint of
amusement. "You do not look well."

"It has been a strange morning," the prince replied.

"So they have already ridden to Hernystir?" Josua
spoke carefully. 'This is unexpected news indeed."

"You do not seem pleased," Aditu commented-

"We had hoped for Sithi aid—although we certainly
did not expect it, or even think that it was deserved." He
grimaced. "I know you have no cause to love my father,
and so no reason to love me or my people. But I am glad
to hear that the Hemystiri will hear the Sithi's horns. I
have wished I could do more for Lluth's folk."

Aditu stretched her arms high over her head, a gesture
that seemed oddly childlike, out of place with the gravity
of the discussion. "As have we. But we have long exiled
ourselves from the doings of all mortals, even the
Hemystiri. We might have remained that way, even at the
expense of honor," she said with casual frankness, "but

638 Tad Williams

events forced us to admit that Hernystir's war was ours,
too." She turned her luminous eyes on the prince. "As is
yours, of course. And that is why, when Hernystir is free,
the Zida'ya will ride to Naglimund."

"As you said." Josua looked around the circle, as
though to confirm that the others had heard the same
thing as he. "But you did not say why."

"Many reasons. Because it is too close to our forest,
and our lands. Because the Hikeda'ya must not have any
foothold south of Nakkiga. And other worries I am not at
leave to explain."

"But if the rumors are true," Josua said, "the Noms arc
already at the Hayholt."

Aditu cocked her head on one side. "A few are there,
no doubt to reinforce your brother's bargain with Ineluki.
But, Prince Josua, you should understand that there is a
difference between the Noms and their undead master,
just as there is a difference between your castle and your
brother's. Ineluki and his Red Hand cannot come to
Asu'a—what you call the Hayholt. So it falls to the
Zida'ya to make sure that they cannot make a home for
themselves in Naglimund either, or anywhere else south
of the Frostmarch."

"Why can't the ... why can't he come to the Hayholt?"
Simon asked.

"It is an irony, but you can thank the usurper Fingil and
the other mortal kings who have held Asu'a for that,"
Aditu said. "When they saw what Ineluki had done in his
final moments of life, they were terrified. They had not
dreamed that anyone, even the Sithi, could wield such
power. So prayers and spells—if there is a difference be-
tween the two—were said over each handspan of what re-
mained of our home before the mortals made it their own.
As it was rebuilt, the same was done over and over again,
until Asu'a was so wrapped in protections that Ineluki
can never come there until Time itself ends, when it will
not matter." Her face tightened. "But he is still unimagin-
ably strong. He can send his living minions, and they will
help him rule over your brother and, through him, man-
kind."

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER                           639

"So you think that is what Ineluki plans?" Geloe asked.
"Is that what Amerasu thought?"

"We will never know for certain. As Simon has no
doubt told you, she died before she could share with us
the fruits of her pondering. One of the Red Hand was sent
into Jao e-Tinukai'i to help silence her—a feat that must
have exhausted even Utuk'ku and the Unliving One be-
low Nakkiga, so it says much of how greatly they feared
First Grandmother's wisdom." She briefly crossed her
hands over her breast, then touched a finger to each eye.
"So the Houses of Exile came together in Jao e-Tinukai'i
to consider what had happened and to make plans for war.
That Ineluki plans to use your brother to rule mankind
seemed to all the gathered Zida'ya the most likely possi-
bility." Aditu leaned down to the brazier and picked up a
piece of wood that smoldered at one end. She held it be-
fore her, so that its glow crimsoned her face. "Ineluki is,
in a way, alive, but he can never truly exist in this world
again—and in the place he covets most, he has no direct
power." She looked around the gathering, sharing her
golden stare with each in turn. "But he will do what he
can to bring the upstart mortals, under his fist. And if he
can also humble his family and tribe while he does so,
then I do not doubt he will." Aditu made a noise that
sounded a little like a sigh and dropped the wood back
into the embers- "Perhaps it is fortunate that most heroes
who die for their people cannot come back to see what
the people do with that hard-bought life and freedom."

There was a pause. Josua at last broke the silence.

"Has Simon told you that we buried our fallen here on
Sesuad'ra?"

Aditu nodded. "We are not strangers to death. Prince
Josua. We are immortal, but only in the sense that we do
not die except by our own choice—or the choice of oth-
ers. Perhaps we are all the more enmeshed with dying be-
cause of it. Just because our lives are long when held
against yours does not mean we are any more eager to
give them up." She allowed a slow, coolly measured
smile to narrow her lips. "So we know death well. Your

640 Tad Williams

people fought bravely to defend themselves. There is no
shame to us in sharing this place with those who died."

"Then I would like to show you something else." Josua
stood and extended his hand toward the Sitha. Vorzheva,
watching closely, did not look pleased. Aditu rose and
followed the prince toward the door.

"We have buried my friend—my dearest friend—in the
garden behind Leavetaking House," he said. "Simon, per-
haps you will accompany us? And Geloe and
Strangyeard, too, if you would like," he added hurriedly.

"I will stay and talk with Vorzheva for a while," the
wise woman said. "Aditu, I look forward to a chance to
speak with you later."

"Certainly."

"I think I will come, too," Strangyeard said, almost
apologetically. "It's very pretty there."

"Sesu-d'asu is a sad place now," said Aditu. "It was
beautiful once."

They stood before the broad expanse of Leavetaking
House; its weatherworn stones glinted dully in the sun-
light.

"I think it is still beautiful," Strangyeard said shyly.

"So do I," Simon echoed. "Like an old woman who
used to be a lovely young girl, but you can still see it in
her face."

Aditu grinned. "My Seoman," she said, "the time you
spent with us has made you part Zida'ya. Soon you will
be composing poems and whispering them to the passing
wind."

They walked through the hall and into the ruined gar-
den, where a cairn of stones had been built over
Deomoth's grave. Aditu stood silently for a moment, then
laid her hand atop the uppermost stone. "It is a good,
quiet place." For a moment, her gaze grew distant, as
though she beheld some other place or time. "Of all the
songs we Zida'ya sing," she murmured, "the closest to
our hearts are those which tell of things lost."

"Perhaps that is because none of us can know some-
thing's true value until it is gone," said Josua. He bowed

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER           64!

his head. The grass between the broken paving stones rip-
pled in the breeze.

A

Strangely, of all the mortals living on Sesuad'ra, it was
Vorzheva who most quickly befriended Aditu—if a mor-
tal could truly become a friend to one of the immortals.
Even Simon, who had lived among them and had rescued
one of them, was not at all certain that he could count any
of them as friends.

But despite her initial coolness toward the Sitha-
woman, Vorzheva seemed to be drawn by something in
Aditu's alien nature, perhaps the mere fact that Aditu was
alien, the only one of her kind in that place, as Vorzheva
herself had been for all the years in Naglimund. Whatever
Aditu's attraction, Josua's wife made her welcome and
even sought her out. The Sitha also seemed to enjoy
Vorzheva's company: when she was not with Simon or
Geloe, she could often be found walking with the
Thrithings-woman among the tents, or sitting by her bed-
side on days when Vorzheva felt ill or tired. Duchess
Outrun, Vorzheva's usual companion, did her best to
show good manners to the strange visitor, but something
in her Aedonite heart would not let her be fully comfort-
able. While Vorzheva and Aditu talked and laughed,
Gutrun watched Aditu as though the Sitha were a sort of
dangerous animal that she had been assured was now
tame.

For her part, Aditu seemed oddly fascinated by the
child Vorzheva carried. Few children were bom to the
Zida'ya, especially in these days, she explained. The last
had come over a century before, and he was now as much
of an adult as the eldest of the Dawn Children. Aditu also
seemed interested in Leieth, although the little girl was no
more expressive with her than with anyone else. Still, she
would allow Aditu to take her for walks, and even to
carry her occasionally, something that almost no one else
was permitted to do.

If Aditu was interested in some of the mortals, the or-

642 Tad Williams

dmary citizens of New Gadrinsett were m turn both fasci-
nated and terrified by her. Ulca's tale—the truth of which
was strange enough—had grown in the telling and retell-
ing until Aditu's arrival had come in a flash of light and
puff of smoke; the Sitha, the story continued, enraged by
the mortal girl's flirtation with her intended, had threat-
ened to turn Uica into stone. Uica quickly became -the
heroine of every young woman on Sesuad'ra, and Aditu,
despite the fact that she was seldom seen by most of the
hill-dwellers, became the subject of endless gossip and
superstitious mumbling.

To his chagrin, Simon also continued to be a subject of
rumor and speculation in the small community. Jeremias,
who frequently loitered in the marketplace beside
Leavetaking House, would gleefully report the latest
strange tale—the dragon from whom Simon had stolen
the sword would come back someday and Simon would
have to fight it; Simon was part Sitha and Aditu had been
sent to bring him back to the halls of the Fair Folk; and
so on. Simon, hearing the fantasies that seemed to be
woven from empty air, could only cringe. There was
nothing he could do—every attempt he made to quell the
stories merely convinced the folk of New Gadrinsett that
he was either manfully modest or slyly deceptive- Some-
times he found the fabrications amusing, but he still could
not help feeling more closely observed than was comfort-
able, leading him to spend his time only with people he
knew and trusted. His evasiveness, of course, only fueled
more speculation.

If this was fame, Simon decided, he would have pre-
ferred to stay a lowly and unknown scullion. Sometimes
when he walked through New Gadrinsett these days,
when people waved to him or whispered to each other as
he passed, he felt quite naked, but there was nothing to do
but walk by with a smile on his face and his shoulders
back. Scullions could hide or run away; knights could
not.

A

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER            643

"He is outside, Josua. He swears you are expecting
him."

"Ah." The prince turned to Simon. "This must be the
mysterious messenger I spoke of—the one with news of
Nabban. And it has been a fortnight—almost to the day.
Stay and see." To Sludig he said: "Bring him in, please."

The Rimmersman stepped out, then returned a moment
later leading a tall, lantem-jawed fellow, pale-complected
and—Simon thought—a little sullen-looking. The Rim-
mersman stepped back beside the wall of the tent and re-
mained there with one hand on the handle of his ax, the
other toying with the hairs of his yellow beard.

The messenger dropped slowly to one knee. "Prince
Josua, my master sends his greetings and bids me give
you this." As he put his hand in his cloak Sludig took a
step forward, even though the messenger was several
paces away from the prince, but the man withdrew only a
roll of parchment, beribboned and sealed in blue wax.
Josua stared at it for a moment, then nodded to Simon to
fetch it to him.

"The winged dolphin," Josua said as he gazed at the
emblem stamped into the melted wax. "So your master is
Count Streawe of Perdruin?"

It was hard not to call the look on the messenger's face
a smirk. "He is. Prince Josua."

The prince broke the seal and unrolled the parchment.
He scanned it for a few long moments, then curled it up
and set it on the arm of his chair. "I will not hurry
through this. What is your name, man7"

The messenger nodded his head with immense satisfac-
tion, as though he had been long expecting this crucial
question. "It is ... Lenti."

"Very well, Lenti, Sludig will take you and see that you
get food and drink. He will also find you a bed because
I will want some time before I send my answer—maybe
several days."

The messenger looked around the prince's tent, as-
sessing the possible quality of New Gadrinsett's accom-
modations. "Yes, Prince Josua."

644

Tad Williams

Sludig came forward and, with a jerk of his head, sum-
moned Lenti to follow him out.

"I didn't think much of the messenger," Simon said
when they had gone,

Josua was inspecting the parchment once more. "A
fool," he agreed "jumped up beyond his capabilities, even
for something as simple as this. But don't confuse
Streawe with his minions—Perdruin's master is clever" as
a marketplace cutpurse. Still, it doesn't speak well of his
ability to deliver on this promise if he can find no more
impressive servitor to bear it to me."

"What promise?" Simon asked.

Josua rolled the message and slid it into his sleeve.
"Count Streawe claims he can deliver me Nabban." He
stood. "The old man is lying, of course, but it leads to
some interesting speculation."

"I don't understand, Josua."

The prince smiled. "Be glad. Your days of innocence
about people like Streawe are fast disappearing." He pat-
ted Simon's shoulder. "For now, young knight, 1 would as
soon not talk about it. There will be a time and place for
this at the Raed."

"You're ready to have your council?"

Josua nodded. "The time has come. For once, we will
call the tune—then we will see if we can make my
brother and his allies dance to it."

*

"That is a most interesting deception, clever Seoman."
Aditu stared down at the game of shent she had con-
structed from wood and root-dyes and polished stones.
"A false thrust played falsely: a seeming that is revealed
as a sham, but underneath is a true thing after all. Very
pretty—but what will you do if I place my Bright Stones
here ... here ... and here?" She suited action to words.

Simon frowned. In the dim light of his tent, her hand
moved almost too swiftly to be seen. For an unpleasant
moment he wondered if she might be cheating him, but
another instant's reflection convinced him that Aditu had

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER

645

no need to cheat someone to whom the subtleties of shent
were still largely a mystery, any more than Simon would
trip a small child with whom he was running a race. Still,
it raised an interesting question.

"Can you cheat at this game?"

Aditu looked up from arranging her pieces. She was
wearing one of Vorzheva's loose dresses; the combination
of her unusually modest attire and her unbound hair made
her look a little less dangerously wild—in fact, it made
her seem disconcertingly human. Her eyes gleamed in the
light of the brazier. "Cheat? Do you mean lie? A game
can be as deceptive as the players wish it to be."

"That's not what I mean. Can you do something on
purpose that is against the rules?" She was eerily beauti-
ful. He stared at her, remembering the night she had
kissed him. What had that meant? Anything? Or was it
just another way for Aditu to toy with her one-time lap-
dog?

She considered his question. "I am not sure how to an-
swer. Could you cheat against the way you are made and
fly by flapping your arms?"

Simon shook his head. "A game that has so many rules
must have some way to break them...."

Before Aditu could try again to answer, Jeremias burst
into the tent, out of breath and agitated. "Simon!" he
shouted, then drew up short, seeing that Aditu was there.
"I'm sorry." Despite his embarrassment, he was having
trouble containing his excitement.

"What is it?"

"People have come!"

"Who? What people?" Simon looked briefly to Aditu,
but she had returned to her study of the arrangement be-
fore her.

"Duke Isgrimnur and the princess!" Jeremias waved his
arms up and down. "And there are others with them, too!
A strange little man, sort of like Binabik and his trolls,
but almost our size- And an old man—he's taller than
you, even. Simon, the whole town has gone down to see
them!"

646 Tad Williams

He sat for a moment in silence, his mind whirling.
"The princess?" he said at last. "Princess ... Miriamele?"

"Yes, yes," Jeremias panted. "Dressed as a monk, but
she took off her hood and waved to people. Come on, Si-
mon, everyone is going down to meet them." He turned
and took a few steps toward the doorway, then pivoted to
look at his friend in astonishment. "Simon? What's
wrong? Don't you want to go see the princess and Duke
Isgrimnur and the brown man?"

"The princess." He turned helplessly to Aditu, who
gazed back at him with feline disinterest.

"It sounds like something you will enjoy, Seoman. We
will play our game later."

Simon stood and followed Jeremias out of the tent and
into the hilltop wind, moving as slowly and unsteadily as
a sleepwalker. As if he passed through a dream, he heard
people shouting all around, a rising murmur of sound that
filled his ears like the roar of the ocean.

Miriamele had come back.

21

Answered Prayers

It had yawn steadily colder as Miriamele and her
companions made their way across the wide grasslands.
By the time they reached the seemingly endless plain of
the Meadow Thnthing, there was snow on the ground,
and even in full afternoon the sky remained a dull pewter
stained with streaks of black cloud. Huddled in her trav-
eling cloak against the predatory wind, Miriamele found
herself almost grateful that Aspitis Preves had found
them; it would have been a long and miserable journey
indeed if they had been forced to make it on foot. Cold
and uncomfortable as she was, however, Miriamele was
also experiencing a curious sense of freedom. The earl
had haunted her, but now, although he lived, and might
still conceivably seek some kind of vengeance, she no
longer feared him or anything he might do. But Cadrach's
flight was another thing altogether.

Since their escape together from the Eodne Cloud, she
had begun to see the Hemystirman in a different way. He
had betrayed her several times, certainly, but in his odd
way he had semed to care for her as well. The monk's
own self-hatred had continued to loom between them—
and had apparently driven him away at last—but her own
feelings had changed.

She deeply regretted the argument over Tiamak's
parchment. Miriamele had thought she might slowly con-
tinue to draw him out, might somehow reach through to
the man beneath—a man she liked. But, as though she
had tried to tame a wild dog and had moved too quickly

648 Tad Williams

to pet it, Cadrach had startled and bolted. Miriamele
could not rid herself of the obscure feeling that she had
missed an opportunity that was more important than she
could understand.

Even on horseback, it was a long journey. Her thoughts
were not always good company.

*

They rode a full week to reach the Meadow Thrithing,
traveling from first light until after the sun had vanished
... on those days that they saw the sun at all. The
weather grew steadily colder, but remained something
just short of unlivable: by mid-aftemoon of most days the
sun struggled through like a tired but determined messen-
ger and chased away the chill-

The meadowlands were wide and, for the most part,
flat and featureless as a carpet. What slope there was to
the land was almost more depressing: after a long day's
ride up a gradual incline, Miriamele found it hard to rid
herself of the idea that they would eventually reach a
summit and that it would be somewhere. Instead, at some
point they would cross a flat table of meadow no more in-
teresting than the upward slope, then gradually find them-
selves moving down an equally uninspiring decline. Even
the idea of having to make such a monotonous journey on
foot was disheartening. Acre after empty acre, mile after
trying mile, Miriamele whispered quiet prayers of grati-
tude for Aspitis' unwitting gift of horses.

Riding on the saddle before her, Tiamak quickly recov-
ered his strength. After some encouragement, the
Wrannaman told her—and Isgrimnur, who was happy to
have someone else share the burden of storytelling—more
about his childhood in the marshes and his difficult year
as an aspiring scholar in Perdruin. Although his natural
reticence prevented him from dwelling on his ill-
treatment, Miriamele thought she could feel every slight,
every little cruelty that wound through his tale.

I'm not the first person to feel lonely, to feel misunder-
stood and unwanted. This seemingly obvious fact now

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER                           649

struck her with the force of revelation. And I'm a prin-
cess, a privileged person—I've never been hungry, never
been afraid that I would die unremembered, never been
told that I wasn't good enough to do something that I
wished to do.

Listening to Tiamak, watching his wiry but somehow
fragile form, his precise, scholarly gestures, Miriamele
was dismayed by her own willful ignorance. How could
she, with all her native good fortune, be so consumed
with the few inconveniences that God or fate had put in
her way? It was shameful.

She tried to tell Duke Isgrimnur something of her
thoughts, but he would not let her slide too far into self-
loathing.

"Each one of has our own sorrows. Princess," he said.
"It's no shame to take them to heart. The only sin is to
forget that other folk have theirs, too—or to let pity for
yourself slow your hand when someone needs help."

Isgrimnur, Miriamele was reminded, was more than
just a gruff old soldier.

On their third night in the Meadow Thrithing, as the
four sat close to their campfire—very close, since wood
was scarce on the grasslands and the fire was a small
one—Miriamele finally worked up the courage to ask
Tiamak about his sack and its contents.

The Wrannaman was so embarrassed he could scarcely
meet her eye. "It is terrible. Lady. I remember only a lit-
tle, but in my fever I was certain that Cadrach meant to
steal it from me."

"Why would you think that? And what is it, anyway?"

After a moment's consideration, Tiamak reached into his
bag, drew out the leafy bundle, and peeled away the wrap-
pings. "It was when you spoke of the monk and Nisses'
book," he explained shyly. "I can believe now that it was in-
nocent, since Morgenes also said something about Nisses in
his message to me—but in the depth of my illness, I could
only think that it meant my treasure was in danger."

He handed her the parchment. As she unrolled it,
Isgrimnur moved around the fire to look over her shoul-

650 Tad Williams

der. Camaris, seemingly oblivious as always, stared out
into the empty night.

"It's some kind of song," Isgrimnur said crossly, as
though he had been expecting more.

"... 'The manne who though blinded canne see' ..."
Miriamele read. "What is it?"

"I am not sure myself," Tiamak replied. "But look, it is
signed 'Nisses.' I think it is part of his lost book, Du
Svardenvyrd."

Miriamele took a sudden breath. "Oh. But that's the
book Cadrach had—the one he sold off page by page."
She felt something squeeze in the pit of her stomach.
"The book that Pryrates wanted. Where did you get this?"

"I bought it in Kwanitupul almost a year ago. It was
part of a pile of scraps. The merchant could not have
known it was worth anything, or else he never inspected
what he had probably bought as scrap himself."

"I don't think Cadrach actually knew what you had,"
said Miriamele. "But, Elysia, Mother of Mercy, how
strange! Perhaps this is one of the pages that he sold!"

"He sold pages of Nisses1 book?" Tiamak asked. Out-
rage mingled with wonder. "How could that be?"

"Cadrach told me he was poor and desperate." She
weighed the idea of telling them the rest of the monk's
story, then decided she should consider the matter more
carefully. They might not understand his actions. Even
though he had fled, she felt the urge to protect Cadrach
from those who did not know him as she did. "He had a
different name then," she offered, as though somehow it
might absolve him. "He was called Padreic."

"Padreic!" Now Tiamak was nothing short of as-
tounded. "But I know that name' Can he be the same
man? Doctor Morgenes knew him well!"

"Yes, he knew Morgenes. He has a strange history."

Isgrimnur snorted, but now he, too, sounded a little de-
fensive. "A strange history indeed, it seems."

Miriamele hurried to change the subject. "Perhaps
Josua will understand this,"

The duke shook his head. "I think Prince Josua, if we

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER                           65!

find him, will have other things to do than look at old
parchments."

"But it may be important." Tiamak looked sideways at
Isgrimnur. "As I said. Doctor Morgenes wrote in a letter
to me that he thought these were the times that Nisses
warned about. Morgenes was a man who knew many
things hidden from the rest of us."

Isgrimnur grunted and moved back to his own place in
the fire-circle. "It's beyond me. Well beyond me."

Miriamele was watching Camaris, who was surveying
the darkness as calmly and possessively as an owl poised
to glide from a tree branch. "There are so many mysteries
these days," she said. "Won't it be nice when things are
simple again?"

There was a pause, then Isgrimnur laughed self-
consciously. "I'd forgotten the monk was gone. I was
waiting for him to say, 'Things will never be simple
again,* or something like it."

Miriamele smiled despite herself. "Yes, that's just what
he would have said." She held her hands closer to the
fire's reassuring warmth and let out a sigh. "Just what
he would have said."

Days passed as they rode north. Snow thickened on the
ground; the wind became an enemy. As the last leagues of
the Meadow Thrithing disappeared behind them,
Miriamele and the rest grew more and more downhearted.

"It's hard to imagine Josua and the rest are having any
luck in this weather." Isgrimnur was almost shouting to
be heard above the wind. "Things are worse now than
when I came south."

"If they are alive, that will be enough," Miriamele said.
"That will be a start."

"But, Princess, we don't really know where to look for
them." The duke was almost apologetic. "None of the ru-
mors I heard said much more than that Josua was some-
where in the High Thrithing. There's more than a hundred
leagues of grassland up ahead, no more settled or civi-
lized than this." He waved his broad arm at the bleak,

652 Tad Williams

snowy expanses on either side. "We could hunt for
months."

"We will find him," Miriamele said, and in her own
heart she felt almost as certain as she sounded. Surely the
things she had been through, the things she had learned,
must be for something. "There are people who live on the
Thrithings," she added. "If Josua and the others have
made themselves a settlement, the Thrithings-folk will
know."

Isgrimnur snorted. "The Thrithings-folk! Miriamele, I
know them better than you may think. These are not
town-dwellers. For one thing, they do not stay in one
place, so we may not even find them. And we might be
just as glad if we don't. They are barbarians, just as likely
to knock our heads off as offer us news of Josua."

"I know you fought against the Thrithings-men,"
Miriamele replied. "But that was long ago." She shook
her head. "And we have no choice that I can see, in any
case. We will solve that when we come to it."

The duke stared at her with a mixture of frustration and
amusement on his face, then shrugged. "You are your fa-
ther's daughter."

Strangely, Miriamele was not displeased by this re-
mark, but she frowned anyway—as much to keep the
duke in his place as anything. A moment later she
laughed.

"What's funny?" Isgrimnur asked suspiciously.

"Nothing, in truth. I was just thinking of all the times
when I was with Binabik and Simon. Several times I had
decided that within a few moments I would be dead—
once when some terrible dogs almost got us, another time
a giant, and men shooting arrows at us ..." She shook her
hair from her eyes, but the maddening wind immediately
flung it back. She tucked the offending strands back into
her hood. "But now I don't think that any more, no matter
how dreadful things are. When Aspitis captured us, I
never believed that he would truly manage to take me
away. And if he had, I would have escaped."

She slowed her horse for a moment, trying to put her
thought into words. "You see, in truth it's not funny at all.

TO  GREEN   ANGEL TOWER

653

But it seems to me now that there are things happening
that are beyond our strength. Like waves on the ocean,
huge waves. I can fight them—and drown—or I can let
them carry me, and swim just enough to keep my head
above the water. I know I'm going to see Uncle Josua
again. I just know. And Simon and Binabik and
Vorzheva—there's more to be done, that's all."

Isgrimnur looked at her warily, as though the little girl
he had once knee-dandled had become a Nabbanai star-
reader. "And then? When we're all together again?"

Miriamele smiled at him, but it was only the bitter-
sweet tip of a great sorrow that washed through her. "The
wave will crash, dear old Uncle Isgrimnur ... and some
of us will go down and never come up. I don't know how
it will be, of course not. But I'm not as frightened as I
used to be."

They were silent then, three horses and four riders
fighting their way into the wind.

Only the amount of time they had been riding told
them when they had crossed over into the High Thrithing;

the snow-mantled meadows and hills were no more mem-
orable than anything they had crossed in the first week of
their journey. Strangely, though, the weather did not
worsen as they continued to move northward. Miriamele
even began to believe that it was growing a bit warmer,
the wind a little less biting.

"A hopeful sign," she said one afternoon when the sun
actually appeared. "I told you, Isgrimnur. We'll get
there."

"Wherever 'there' is, exactly," the duke grumbled.

Tiamak stirred in the saddle. "Perhaps we should make
our way to the river. If there are people still living in this
place, they are most likely to be near moving water,
where there might still be fish to catch." He shook his
head sadly. "I wish that what I remembered from my
dream was more precise."

Isgrimnur pondered. "The Ymstrecca is just south of
the great forest. But it runs most of the length of the
Thrithings—a long way to go a-searching."

654

Tad Williams

"Is there not another river that crosses it?" Tiamak
asked. "It has been long since I looked at a map."

"There is. The Stefflod. if I remember rightly." The
duke frowned. "But it is little more than a large stream."

"Still, in the places where rivers meet you often find
villages," Tiamak said with surprising assuredness. "So it
is in the Wran, and in all the other places that I have
heard of."

Miriamele started to say something, but stopped,
watching Camaris. The old man had ridden a little way
off to the side and was watching the sky. She followed his
stare but saw only dingy clouds.

Isgrimnur was considering the Wrannaman's idea.
"P'raps you're right, Tiamak. If we continue north, we
can't help but strike the Ymstrecca. But I think the
Stefflod must be a little to the east." He looked around as
though seeking some landmark; his eyes stopped on
Camaris. "What's he looking at?"

"I don't know," Miriamele replied. "Oh. It must be
those birds'"

A pair of dark shapes were swooping toward them out
of the east, whirling like cinders caught in the draught of
a fire.

"Ravens'" said Isgrimnur. "Gore crows'."

The birds wheeled in a circle above the travelers as if
they had found what they had been seeking. Miriamele
thought she could see their yellow eyes glint. The sensa-
tion of being watched, marked, was very strong. After a
few more turns, the ravens dove, their feathers shining
oily-black as they approached. Miriamele ducked her
head and covered her eyes. The ravens flew past,
shrieking; a moment later they banked upward and hur-
tled away. In moments, the birds were two dwindling
specks vanishing into the northern sky.

Only Camaris had not lowered his head- He watched
their retreating forms with an absorbed, contemplative
look.

"What are they?" Tiamak asked. "Are they danger-
ous?"

"Birds of ill omen," the duke growled. "In my country,

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER                           655

we chase them with arrows. Carrion eaters." He made a
face.

"I think they were looking at us," Miriamele said. "I
think they wanted to know who we were."

"That's no way to talk." Isgrimnur reached over and
squeezed her arm. "And what would birds care who we
were, anyway?"

Miriamele shook her head. "I don't know. But that's
the feeling I have: someone wanted to know who we
were—and now they do."

"They were Just ravens." The duke's smile was grim.
"We have other things to worry about."

"That's true," she said.

A few more days' riding brought them at last to the
Ymstrecca. The swiftly flowing river was almost black
beneath the faint sun. Patchy snow cloaked its banks.

"The weather is getting warmer," Isgrimnur said,
pleased. "This is scarcely colder than it should be at this
time of the year. It is Novander, after all."

"Is it?" Miriamele was unsettled. "And we left Josua's
keep in Yuven. Half a year. Elysia's mercy, we have been
traveling a long time."

They turned and followed the river eastward, stopping
at dark to make camp with the sound of the water loud in
their ears. They started early the next morning beneath a
gray sky.

In late afternoon they reached the edge of a shallow
valley of wet grass. Before them, like the leavings from
some ruinous flood, lay the weather-battered remains of a
vast settlement. Hundreds of makeshift houses had stood
here, and most of them seemed to have been recently in-
habited, but something had drawn or driven out the resi-
dents; but for a few lonely birds poking among the
abandoned dwellings, the ramshackle city seemed de-
serted.

Miriamele's heart sank. "Was this Josua's camp?
Where have they gone?"

"It is on a great hill. Lady," Tiamak said. "At least, that
was what I saw in my dream."

656 Tad Williams

Isgrimnur spurred his horse down toward the empty
settlement.

On inspection, much of the impression of disaster was
revealed to be the nature of the settlement itself, since
most of the building materials were scraps and deadwood.
There did not seem to be a nail in the whole of the city;

the crudely woven ropes that had held together most of
the better-constructed buildings appeared to have frayed
and given way in the clutch of storms that had lately bat-
tered the Thrithings—but even at the best of times,
Miriamele decided, none of the dwellings could have
been much more than hovels.

There was also some sign of orderly retreat. Most of
the people who had lived here seemed to have had time to
take their possessions with them—although, judging by
the quality of the shelters, they could not have had much
to start. Still, there was little left of the everyday necessi-
ties: Miriamele found a few broken pots and some rags of
clothing so miserably tattered and mud-soaked that even
in a cold winter they had probably not been missed.

'They left," she told Isgrimnur, "but it looks as though
they chose to."

"Or were ^orced to," the duke pointed out. "They could
have been marched out in a careful manner, if you see
what I mean."

Camaris had climbed down from his horse and was
rooting in a pile of sod and broken branches that had once
been someone's home. He stood up with something shiny
in his hand.

"What is that?" Miriamele rode over. She held out her
hand, but Camaris was staring at the piece of metal. At
last she reached out and gently pried it from the old
knight's long, callused fingers.

Tiamak slid forward onto the horse's shoulders and
turned to examine the object. "It looks like a clasp to hold
a cloak," he offered.

"It is, I think." The silvery object, bent and muddy, had
a rim of molded holly leaves. At the center was a pair of
crossed spears and an angry reptilian face. Miriamele felt

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER            657

a wisp of fear rise inside her once more. "Isgrimnur, look
at this."

The duke brought his mount alongside hers and took
the brooch. "It's the badge of the king's Erkynguard."

"My father's soldiers," Miriamele murmured. She
could not restrain the urge to look around, as though a
company of knights could have been lying in wait unob-
served somewhere nearby on the empty grass slope.
"They have been here."

"They could have been here after the people left,"
Isgrimnur said. "Or there could be some other reason we
can't guess." He did not sound very convinced himself.
"After all. Princess, we don't even know who was living
here."

"/ know." She was angry just imagining it. "They were
people who had fled my father's reign. Josua and the oth-
ers were probably with them. Now they have been driven
away or captured."

"Pardon, Lady Miriamele," Tiamak said cautiously,
"but I think it would not be good to make our minds up
so quickly. Duke Isgrimnur is right: there is much we do
not know. This is not the place I saw in the dream Geloe
sent me."

"So, then, what should we do?"

"Continue," said the Wrannaman. "Follow the tracks.
Perhaps those who lived here have gone to join Josua."

"That looks promising over there." The duke was shad-
ing his eyes against the gray sun. He pointed toward the
edge of the settlement, where a series of wide ruts wound
out from the trampled acres of mud toward the north.

"Then let us follow." Miriamele handed the brooch
back to Camaris. The old knight looked at it for a mo-
ment, then let it drop to the ground.

The ruts ran close enough together to make a large
muddy scar through the grasslands. On either side of this
makeshift road lay the marks of the people who had used
it—broken wagon spokes, sodden fire ashes, numerous
holes dug and filled in. Despite the look of it, the ugly
scatter across an otherwise pristine land, Miriamele was

658

Tad Williams

heartened by how new the signs seemed: it could not have
been more than a month or two at most since the road had
been traveled.

Over a supper culled from their dwindling Village
Grove stores, Miriamele asked Isgrimnur what he would
do when they reached Josua at last. It was nice to talk
about that day as something that would happen, not just
as something that might: it made it seem certain, real and
tangible, even though she still felt a wisp of superstitious
fear at talking of good things not yet come to pass.

"I'D show him that I kept my word/' the duke laughed.
"Show you to him. Then I think I will catch up my wife
and hug her until she squeaks."

Miriamele smiled, thinking of plump, always-capable
Outrun. "I want to see that." She looked over at Tiamak,
who slept, and Camaris, who was polishing Isgrimnur's
sword with the fascinated absorption he usually gave only
to the movements of birds in the sky. Before the duel with
Aspitis, the old knight had not wanted even to touch the
blade. She felt a little sad now as she watched him. He
handled the duke's sword as though it were an old but not
quite trusted friend.

"You really miss her, don't you?" she said, turning
back to Isgrimnur. "Your wife."

"Ah, sweet Usires, I do." He stared at the fire as
though unwilling to meet her eyes. "I do,"

"You love her." Miriamele was pleased and a little sur-
prised: Isgrimnur had spoken with a heat she had not ex-
pected. It was strange to think that love could bum so
strongly in the breast of someone who seemed as old and
familiar as the duke—and that grandmotherly Duchess
Outrun could be the object of such powerful feelings!

"Of course I love her, I suppose," he said, frowning.
"But it's more than that, my lady. She's a part of me, my
Outrun—we've grown together through the years, twined
'round each other like two old trees." He laughed and
shook his head. "I always knew. From the moment I saw
her first, carrying mistletoe from the ship-grave of
Sotfengsel ... Ah, she was so beautiful. She had the
brightest eyes I've ever seen! Like something in a story."

TO  GREEN  ANGEL TOWER

659

Miriamele sighed. "I hope someone feels that way
about me someday."

"They will, my girl, they will." Isgrimnur smiled. "And
when you are married, if you are lucky enough to marry
the right one, you will know just what I mean. He will be
a part of you, just like my Outrun is for me- Forever until
we die." He made the Tree on his breast. "None of this
southlander nonsense for me—widows and widowers tak-
ing another spouse! How could anyone ever match her?"
He fell silent as he considered the monumental imperti-
nence of second marriages.

Miriamele, too, reflected in silence. Would it be her lot
someday to find such a husband? She thought of
Fengbald, to whom her father had once offered her, and
shuddered. Horrid, swaggering oaf! That Elias, of all peo-
ple, should attempt to marry her to someone she did not
love, when he himself had been so crippled by the death
of Miriamele's mother Hylissa that he had been like a
man lost in the dark since the hour of her death....

Unless he was trying to spare me from such awful lone-
liness, she thought. Maybe he thought it would be a bless-
ing not to love so, and never to feel such a loss. That was
the heartbreaking thing, to see- him so lonely for her....

With the suddenness and enormity of a lightning flash,
Miriamele saw the thing that had been teasing her mind
since Cadrach had first told her his story. It was all there
before her, and it was so clear—so clear! It was as though
she had groped in a blackened chamber, but now a door
had abruptly opened, spilling light, and she could finally
see all the strange shapes she had touched in darkness.

"Oh!" she said, gasping. "Oh! Oh, Father!"

She astonished Isgrimnur by bursting into tears. The
duke tried his best to soothe her, but she could not stop
crying. Neither would she tell him what had caused it, ex-
cept to say that Isgrimnur's words had reminded her of
her mother's death. It was a cruel half-truth, although she
did not intend cruelty: when Miriamele crawled away
from the fire, the duke was left perturbed but helpless,
blaming himself for her misery.

Still sniffling quietly, Miriamele rolled herself in her

66o Tad Williams

blanket to stare at the stars and think. There was suddenly
so much to think about. Nothing important had changed,
but at the same time, everything was vastly different.
Tears came to her again before she finally fell asleep.

*

A brief flurry of snow came up in the morning, not
enough to slow the horses much, but sufficient to make
Miriamele shiver most of the day. The Stefflod was slug-
gish and gray, like a twining stream of fluid lead, and the
snow seemed thickest just above it, so that the fields on
the river's far side were much murkier than the nearer
bank. Miriamele had the illusion that the Stefflod drew
snow like the lodestone in Ruben the Bear's smithy drew
scraps of iron.

The land sloped upward, so that by late afternoon,
when the light had already fled and they rode in cold twi-
light, they found themselves climbing into a rank of low
hills. Trees were nearly as scarce as they had been in the
Lake Thrithing, and the wind was sharp and raw on
Miriamele's cheeks, but there was a sort of relief in the
changing scenery.

They climbed high into the hills that night before mak-
ing camp. When they arose in the morning, feet and fin-
gers and noses bright pink and smarting, the company
lingered over the fire longer than usual. Even Camaris got
on his horse with a look of obvious reluctance.

The snow grew less, then vanished by late morning.
Toward noon the sun emerged brilliantly from the clouds,
sending down great arrow-flights of beams. By the time       ^
they had reached what seemed to be the summit of the
hills in mid-afternoon, the clouds had returned, this time
bearing a chill but delicate rain.

"Princess!" Isgrimnur shouted. "Look here!" He had
ridden a short way ahead, looking for any possible haz-
ards in their journey downslope: an easy ascent did not
guarantee an equally simple descent, and the duke was
taking no chances in unknown country. Half in fear, half
in exhilaration, Miriamele rode forward. Tiamak leaned

TO  GREEN   ANGEL  TOWER

661

forward in the saddle before her, straining to see. The
duke stood in a break in the sparse treeline, waving his
hand toward the gap between the trunks. "Look!"

Spread below them was a wide valley, a bowl of green
patched with white. Despite the soft rain, a sense of still-
ness hung over it, the air somehow taut as an indrawn
breath. At the center, rising up from what looked like a
partially frozen lake, was a great stony hill mantled in
snow-flecked greenery. The slanting light played across it
so that its western face seemed almost to glow, warmly
inviting. From the top, pale smoke rose from a hundred
different sources.

"God be praised, what is it?" Isgrimnur said in aston-
ishment.

"I think it is the place from my dream," Tiamak mur-
mured.

Miriamele hugged herself, awash in feeling. The great
hill seemed almost too real. "I hope it is a good place. I
hope Josua and the others are there."

^Somebody is living there," Isgrimnur said. "Look at
all the fires!"

"Come!" Miriamele spurred her horse down the trail.
"We can be there before nightfall."

"Don't be in such a hurry." Isgrimnur urged his own
mount forward. "We don't know for certain that it's any-
thing to do with Josua."

"I would willingly be captured by almost anyone if
they'd take me to a fire and a warm bed," Miriamele
called back over her shoulder.

Camaris, who had brought up the rear. paused at the
gap in the trees to stare down into the valley. His long
face did not change expression, but he remained where he
was for a long time before following the others.

Although it was still light when they reached the lake
shore, the men who came to meet them carried torches—
flowers of fire that reflected yellow and scarlet in the
black lake water as the boats made their way slowly
through floating ice. Isgrimnur held back at first, cautious
and protective, but before the first boat touched shore he

662 Tad Williams

recognized the yellow-bearded figure in the bow and
swung down from his saddle with a shout of delight.

"Sludig! In God's name, in Aedon's name, bless you!"

His liege-man sloshed the last few steps to shore. Be-
fore he could bend his knee before the duke, Isgrimnur
snatched him up and crushed him to his broad chest.
"How fares the prince?" Isgrimnur cried, "and my la4y
wife? And my son?"

Although Sludig was himself a large man, he had to
free himself from the duke's clutches and catch his breath
before he could assure Isgrimnur that all were fine, al-
though Isom had left on a mission for the prince. Duke
Isgrimnur did a clumsy, enthusiastic, bearlike dance of
glee. "And I've brought the princess back!" the duke said.
"And more, and more! But lead on! Ah, this is as fine as
Aedonmansa!"

Sludig laughed. "We have been watching you since
midday. Josua said: 'Go down and find out who they are.'
He will be quite surprised, I think!" He quickly arranged
for the horses to be loaded on one of the barges, then
helped Miriamele onto the boat.

"Princess." His touch was firm as he helped her to one
of the benches. "You are welcome to New Gadrinsett.
Your uncle will be happy to see you."

The guardsmen who had accompanied Sludig examined
Tiamak and Camaris with great interest as well, but the
Rimmersman did not allow them to waste time. Within
moments they were heading back across the ice-studded
lake.

Waiting on the far side was a cart drawn by two thin
and disgruntled oxen. When the passengers were loaded
on board, Sludig smacked one of the beasts on the flank
and the can began to roll creakily up the stone-shod road.

"What is this?" Isgrimnur peered over the side of the
cart to look at the pale stones.

"It is a Sithi road," Sludig said with more than a touch
of pride. "This is a Sithi place, very ancient. They call it

'Sesuad'ra.' "
"I have heard of it," Tiamak whispered to Miriamele.

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER                           663

"It is famous in lore—but I had no idea it still existed, or
that it was the Stone Geloe showed me!"

Miriamele shook her head. She cared little where they
were being taken. With Sludig's appearance, she felt as
though a vast load had been taken from her back; only
now did she realize how tired she truly was.

She felt herself nodding a little with the movement of
the ox cart, and tried to fight back a wave of exhaustion.
Children were running down the mountainside to join
them. They fell in behind the travelers, shouting and sing-
ing.

By the time they reached the top of the hill, a great
crowd had gathered. Miriamele found the immense sea of
people almost sickening; it had been a long time since the
swarming wooden streets of Kwanitupul, and she found
herself unable to look at so many hungry, expectant faces.
She leaned against Isgrimnur and closed her eyes.

At the top, the faces suddenly became familiar. Sludig
helped her down from the cart and into the arms of her
uncle Josua, who pulled her to him and hugged her al-
most as firmly as Isgrimnur had embraced Sludig. After a
moment he held her out at arm's length to stare at her. He
was thinner than she remembered, and his garments, al-
though colored his habitual gray, were odd and rustic- Her
heart opened a little wider, letting in both pain and joy.

"The Ransomer has answered my prayers," he said-
There could be no doubt, despite his lined and troubled
face, that he was very happy to see her. "Welcome back,
Miriamele."

Then there were more faces—Vorzheva. wearing an
odd, tentlike robe, and the harper Sangfugol, and even lit-
tle Binabik who bowed with mocking courtliness before
taking her hand in his small, warm fingers. Another who
stood silently by seemed oddly familiar. He was bearded,
and a streak of white marred his red hair and capped the
pale scar on his cheek. He looked at her as though he
would memorize her, as though someday he might carve
her in stone.

It took a long moment.

"Simon?" she said-

664

Tad Williams

Astonishment turned rapidly to a kind of strange
bitterness—she had been cheated of so much! While she
had been busy elsewhere, the world had changed. Simon
was no longer a mere boy. Her friend had disappeared,
and this tall young man had taken his place. Had she been
away that long?

The stranger's mouth worked, but it was a moment be-
fore she heard him speak. Simon's voice seemed deeper,
too, but his words were halting. "I am glad you're safe,
Princess. Very glad."

She stared at him, her eyes burning as tears began to
come. The world seemed topside-round.

"Please," she said abruptly, turning to Josua. "I think
... I need to lie down. I need to sleep." She did not see
the one-time kitchen boy lower his head as though he had
been spumed.

"Of course," said her uncle, full of concern. "Of
course. As long as you like. Then, when you arise, we
will have a feast of thanksgiving!"

Miriamele nodded, dazed, then let Vorzheva lead her
away toward the rippling sea of tents. Behind her,
Isgrimnur's arms were still locked about his giggling,
weeping wife-

22

Whispers in Stone

*

Tfte water poured out of the great crevice and splashed
across the shelf of flat black basalt before surging over
the edge and down into the pit. For all its fury, the water-
fall was nearly invisible in the dark cavern, which was lit
only by a few small, glowing stones embedded in the
walls. The impossibly high-ceilinged chamber was called
Yakh Huyeru, which meant Hall of Trembling; and al-
though the cavern had been given that name for another
reason, the walls did seem to shiver ever so slightly as
Kiga 'rasku. the Tearfall, rolled ceaselessly down into the
depths. It made very little noise in its passage, whether
because of some trick of the vast chamber's echo or be-
cause of the void into which it fell. Some of the moun-
tain's residents whispered that Kiga'rasku had no bottom,
that the water fell through the bottom of the earth,
pouring endlessly into the black Between.

As she stood at the chasm's edge, Utuk'ku was a min-
ute stitch of silvery white against the tapestry of dark wa-
ter. Her pale robes fluttered slowly in the wind of the
falls. Her masked face was lowered as though she sought
Kiga'rasku's depths, but at the moment she was not see-
ing the mighty rush of water any more than she saw the
dim sun that rolled past the mountaintop overhead, on the
far side of many hundred furlongs of Stormspike stone.

Utuk'ku considered.

Odd and unsettling shifts had begun to take place in the
intricate pattern of events that she had undertaken so long
ago, events she had studied and delicately modified over

666 Tad Williams

the course of more than a thousand thousand sunless
days. One of the first of those shifts had caused a small
tear in her design. It was not irreparable, of course—
Utuk'ku's weavings were strong, and more than a few
strands would have to snap completely before her long-
planned triumph would be threatened—but patching it
would require care, and work, and the diamond-sharp
concentration that only the Eldest could bring to bear.

The silver mask turned slowly, catching the faint light
like the moon emerging from behind clouds. A trio of fig-
ures had appeared in the doorway of Yakh Huyeru. The
nearest kneeled, then placed the heels of her hands over
her eyes; her two companions did the same.

As Utuk'ku considered them and (he task she would set
for them, she felt a moment of regret for the loss of Ingen
Jegger—but it was a moment only. Utuk'ku Seyt-
Hamakha was the last of the Gardenbom: she had not sur-
vived all of her peers by many centuries through wasting
time on useless emotions. Jegger had been eager and
blindly loyal as a coursing hound, and he had possessed
the particular virtues, for Utuk'ku's purposes, of his own
mortal nature, but he had still been only a tool—
something to be used and then discarded. He had served
what had been at the time her greatest need. For other
tasks, there would be other servitors.

The Norns bowing before her, two women and a man,
looked up as though awakening from a dream. The de-
sires of their mistress had been poured into them like sour
milk from a pitcher, and now Utuk'ku raised her gloved
hand in a brittle gesture of dismissal- They turned and
were gone, smooth, swift, and silent as shadows fleeing

the dawn.

After they had vanished, Utuk'ku stood for another
long silent time before the falling water, listening to the
ghostly echoes. Then, at last, the Nom Queen turned and
made her unhurried way toward the Chamber of the
Breathing Harp.

As she took her seat beside the Well, the chanting from
the depths of Stormspike below her rose in pitch: the

TO  GREEN   ANGEL  TOWER

667

Lightless Ones, in their unfathomable, inhuman way,
were welcoming her back to her frost-mantled throne. Ex-
cept for Utuk'ku herself, the Chamber of the Harp was
empty, although a single thought or flick of her hand
would have raised a thicket of bristling spears clutched in
pale hands.

She lifted her long fingers to the temples of her mask
and stared into the shifting column of steam that hung
above the Well. The Harp, its outlines shiftingly impre-
cise, glinted crimson, yellow and violet. Ineluki's pres-
ence was muted. He had begun to withdraw into himself,
drawing strength from whatever ultimate source nurtured
him as air fed the flame of a candle. He was preparing for
the great test that would be coming soon.

Although it was in some ways a relief to be free of his
burning, angry thoughts—thoughts that often were not in-
telligible even to Utuk'ku except as a sort of cloud of ha-
tred and longing—the Nom Queen's thin lips nevertheless
compressed into a thin line of discontent behind her
gleaming mask. The things she had seen in the dream-
world had troubled her; despite the machinations she had
set underway, Utuk'ku was not altogether content. It
would have been a relief of sorts to share them with the
thing that was focused in the heart of the Well—but it
was not to be. The greatest part of Ineluki would be ab-
sent from now until the final days when the Conqueror
Star stood high.

Utuk'ku's colorless eyes suddenly narrowed. Some-
where on the fringes of the great tapestry of force and
dream that wove through the Well, something else had be-
gun to move in an unexpected way. The Norn Queen
turned her gaze inward, letting her mind reach out and
probe along the strands of her delicately balanced web,
along the uncountable lines of intention and calculation
and fate. There it was: another parting of her careful
work.

A sigh, faint as the velvet wind across a bat's wing,
fluted through Utuk'ku's lips. The singing of the Light-
less Ones faltered for a moment at the wave of irritation
that washed out from Stormspike's mistress, but a mo-

668 Tad Williams

ment later their voices rose again, hollow and triumphant.
It was only someone dabbling with one of the Master
Witnesses—a youngling, even if of the line of Amerasu
Ship-Born- She would treat the whelp harshly. This dam-
age, too, could be repaired. It would merely require a bit
more of her concentration, a bit more of her straining
thought—but it would be done. She was weary, but not so
weary as that.

It had been perhaps a thousand years since the Nom
Queen had smiled, but if she had remembered how, she
might have smiled at that moment. Even the oldest of the
Hikeda'ya had known no other mistress but Utuk'ku.
Some of them could be pardoned, perhaps, for thinking
that she was no longer a living thing, but like the Storm
King a creature made entirely of ice and sorcery and end-
less, vigilant malignity. Utuk'ku knew better. Although
even the millennial lives of some of her descendants
spanned but a small portion of her own, beneath the
corpse-pale robes and shimmering mask was still a living
woman. Inside her ancient flesh a heart still beat—slow
and strong, like a blind thing crawling at the bottom of a
deep, silent sea.

She was weary, but she was still fierce, still powerful.
She had planned so long for these coming days that the
very face of the land above had shifted and altered be-
neath Time's hand as she waited. She would live to see
her revenge.

The lights of the Well flickered on the empty metal
face she showed the world. Perhaps in that triumphant
hour, Utuk'ku thought, she would once more remember
what it was to smile.

«

"Ah, by the Grove," Jiriki said, "it is indeed
Mezutu'a—the Silverhome." He held his torch higher. "I
have not seen it before, but so many songs are sung of it
that I feel I know its towers and bridges and streets as
though I had grown here."

"You haven't been here? But I thought your people

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER                           669

built it." Eolair moved back from the stair's precipitous
edge. The great city lay spread below them, a fantastic
jumble of shadowed stone.

"We did—in part—but the last of the Zida'ya had left
this place long before my birth." hriki's golden eyes were
wide, as though he could not tear his gaze from the roofs
of the cavern city. "When the Tinukeda'ya severed their
fates from ours, Jenjiyana of the Nightingales declared in
her wisdom that we should give this place to the Naviga-
tor's Children, in partial payment of the debt we owed
them." He frowned and shook his head, hair moving
loosely about his shoulders. "Year-Dancing House, at
least, remembered something of honor. She also gave to
them Hikehikayo in the north, and sea-collared Jhina-
T'senei, which has long since disappeared beneath the
waves."

Eolair struggled to make sense of the barrage of
unfamiliar names. "Your people gave this to the
Tinukeda'ya?" he asked. "The creatures that we called
domhaini? The dwarrows?"

"Some were called that," Jiriki nodded. He turned his
bright stare on the count. "But they are not 'creatures,'
Count Eolair. They came from The Garden that is Lost,
just as my people did. We made the mistake of thinking
them less than us then. I wish to avoid it now."

"I meant no insult," said Eolair. "But I met them, as I
told you. They were ... strange. But they were kind to us,
too."

"The Ocean Children were ever gentle." Jiriki began to
descend the staircase. "That is why my people brought
^    them, I fear—because they felt they would be tractable
^     servants."

Eolair hastened to catch up to him. The Sitha moved
with assured swiftness, walking far nearer to the edge
than the count would have dared, and never looking
down. "What did you mean, 'some of them were called
that'?" Eolair asked. "Were there Tinukeda'ya who were
not dwarrows?"

"Yes- Those who lived here—the dwarrows as you call
them—were a smallish group who had split off from the

670 Tad Williams

main tribe. The rest of Ruyan's folk stayed close to water,
since the oceans were always dear to their hearts. Many
of them became what the mortals called 'sea-watchers.' "

"Niskies?" In his long career, during which he had
traveled often in southern waters. Eclair had met many
sea-watchers. "They still exist. But they look nothing like
the dwarrows!"

Jiriki paused to let the count catch up, and thereafter,
perhaps out of courtesy, kept his pace slower. "That was
the Tinukeda'ya's blessing as well as their curse. They
could change themselves, over time, to better fit the place
that they lived: there is a certain mutability in their blood
and bones. I think that if the world were to be destroyed
by fire, the Ocean Children would be the only ones to sur-
vive. Before long, they would be able to eat smoke and
swim in hot ashes."

"But that is astounding," said Eolair. "The dwarrows I
met, Yis-fidri and his companions, seemed so timid. Who
would ever dream they were capable of such things?"

'There are lizards in the southern marshes," Jiriki said
with a smile, "that can change their color to match the
leaf or trunk or stone on which they crouch. They are
timid, too. It does not seem odd to me that the most
frightened creatures are often the best at hiding them-
selves."

"But if your people gave the dwarrows—the
Tinukeda'ya—this place, why are they so afraid of you?
When the lady Maegwin and myself first came here and
met them, they were terrified that we might be servants of
yours come to drag them back."

Jiriki stopped. He seemed to be transfixed by some-
thing down below. When he turned to Eolair once more,
it was with an expression so pained that even his alien
features did not disguise it. 'They are right to be fright-
ened, Count Eolair. Amerasu, our wise one who has just
been taken from us, called our dealings with the
Tinukeda'ya our great shame. We did not treat them well,
and we kept from them things that they deserved to know
... because we thought they would make better servants
if they labored in ignorance." He made a gesture of frus-

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER                           67!

(ration. "When Jenjiyana, Year-Dancing House's mistress,
gave them this place in the distant past, she was opposed
by many of the Houses of Dawn. There are those among
the Zida'ya, even to this day, who feel we should have
kept Ruyan Ve's children as servants. They are right to
fear, your friends."

"None of these things were in our old legends of your
folk," Eolair marveled. "You paint a grim, sad picture,
Prince Jiriki. Why do you tell me all this?"

The Sitha started down the pitted steps once more.
"Because, Count Eolair, that era will soon be gone. That
does not mean I think that happier things are coming—
although there is always a chance, I must suppose. But
for better or worse, this age of the world is ending."

They continued downward, unspeaking.

Eolair relied on his dim memories of his previous visit
to lead Jiriki through the crumbling city—although, Judg-
ing by the Sitha's impatience, which seemed bridled only
by his natural courtesy, Jiriki might have been just as ca-
pable of leading him. As they walked through the
echoing, deserted streets, Eolair again had the impression
of Mezutu'a as not so much a city as a warren for shy yet
friendly beasts. This time, though, with Jiriki's words
about the ocean still fresh in his mind, Eolair saw it as a
sort of coral garden, its countless buildings growing one
from another, shot through with empty doorways and
shadowed tunnels, its towers joined together by stone
walkways thin as spun glass. He wondered absently if the
dwarrows had harbored some longing for the sea deep in-
side themselves, so that this place and its additions—even
now, Jiriki was once again pointing out some feature that
had been added to Mezutu*a's original buildings—had
gradually become a sort of undersea grotto, shielded from
the sun by mountain stone instead of blue water.

As they emerged from the long tunnel and its carvings
of living stone into the vastness of the great stone arena,
Jiriki, who had now taken the lead, was surrounded by a
nimbus of pale, chalky light. As he stared down into the
arena, the Sitha raised his slim hands to shoulder height,

672 Tad Williams

then made a careful gesture before striding forward, only
his deerlike grace hiding the fact that he was moving very
quickly.

The great crystalline Shard still stood at the center of
the bowl, throbbing weakly, its surfaces full of slow-
moving colors. Around it, the stone benches were empty.
The arena was deserted.

"Yis-fidri!" Eolair shouted. "Yis-hadra! It is Eolair,
Count of Nad Mullach!"

His voice rolled across the arena and reverberated
along the cavern's distant walls. There was no reply. "It
is Eolair, Yis-fidri! I have come back!"

When no one answered him—there was no sign of life
at all, no footfalls, no gleam of the dwarrows' rose-crystal
batons—Eolair walked down to join Jiriki.

"This is what I feared," said the count. "That if I
brought you, they would vanish. I only hope they have
not fled the city completely." He frowned. "I imagine
they think me a traitor, bringing one of their former mas-
ters here."

"Perhaps." Jiriki seemed distracted, almost tense, "By
my ancestors," he breathed, "to stand before the Shard of
Mezutu'a! I can feel it singing!"

Eolair put his hand near the milky stone, but could feel
nothing but a slight warming of the air.

Jiriki raised his palms to the Shard but paused short of
touching it, bringing his hands to a stop as though he em-
braced an invisible something that followed the stone's
outline but was nearly twice as large. The light patterns
began to glow a little more colorfully, as though whatever
moved in the stone had swum closer to the surface. Jiriki
watched the play of colors carefully as he moved his fin-
gers in slow orbits, never touching the Shard directly, po-
sitioning his hands around the stone as though partnering
the unmoving object in some ritual dance.

A long time passed, a time in which Eolair felt his legs
beginning to ache. He sat down on one of the stone
benches. A cold draft was wafting down the arena and
scraping at the back of his neck. He huddled a little
deeper into his cloak and watched Jiriki, who still stood

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER                           673

before the gleaming stone, locked in some silent commu-
nion.

More than a little bored, Eolair began to fidget with his
long horsetail of black hair. Although it was hard to tell
exactly how much time had passed since Jinki had ap-
proached the stone, the count knew it had not been a brief
interval: Eolair was famous for his patience, and even in
these maddening days, it took a great deal to make him
restless.

Abruptly, the Sitha flinched and took a step back from
the stone. He swayed in place for a moment, then turned
to Eolair. There was a light in Jiriki's eyes that seemed
more than just a reflection of the Shard's inconstant glow.

"The Speakfire," Jiriki said.

Eolair was confused. "What do you mean?"

"The Speakfire in Hikehikayo. It is another witness—a
Master Witness, like the Shard. It is very close,
somehow—close in a way that has nothing to do with dis-
tance. I cannot shake it free and turn the Shard to other
things."

"What other things do you want to turn it to?"

Jiriki shook his head. He glanced quickly at the Shard
before beginning. "It is hard to explain, Count Eolair. Let
me put it this way—if you were lost and surrounded by
fog, but there was a tree you could climb that would al-
low you to move above the mist, would you not do it?"

Eolair nodded. "Certainly, but I still do not quite see
what you mean."

"Simply this. We who are used to the Road of Dreams
have been denied it of late—as surely as thick fog can
make a person afraid to wander any distance from his
home, even when his need is great. The Witnesses I can
use are minor; without the strength and knowledge of
someone like our First Grandmother Amerasu, they are of
use only for small purposes. The Shard of Mezutu'a is a
Master Witness—I had thought of searching for it even
before we rode out of Jao e-Tinukai'i—but I have just
found that its use is denied me, somehow. It is as though
I had ascended that tree I spoke of, clambering up to the
upper limits of the fog, only to find that someone else

674

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was above me, and that they would not let me climb high
enough to see. I am balked."

"I'm afraid it is all still largely a mystery to a mortal
like me, Jiriki, although I think I see a little of what you
are trying to explain." Eolair considered for a moment.
"Saying it another way: you wish to look out a window,
but someone on the other side has covered it. Is that
right?"

"Yes. Well put." Jiriki smiled, but Eolair saw weariness
beneath the Sitha's alien features. "But I dare not go
away without trying to look through the window again, as
many times as I have the strength."

"I will wait for you, then. But we have brought little
food or water—and besides, although I cannot speak for
yours, I fear my people will have need of me before too
long."

"As to food and drink," Jiriki said distractedly, "you
may have mine." He turned back to the Shard once more.
"When you feel it is time for you to return, tell me—but
do not touch me until I say it is permitted. Count Eolair,
if you will promise. I do not know exactly what I must
do, and it would be safer for both of us if you leave me
alone, no matter what it may seem is happening."

"I will not do anything unless you ask me to," Eolair
promised.

"Good." Jiriki raised his hands and began making the
slow circles once more.

The Count of Nad Mullach sighed and leaned back
against the stone bench, trying to find a comfortable po-
sition.

Eolair awakened from a strange dream—he had been
fleeing before a vast wheel, treetop-tall, rough and splin-
tered as the beams of an ancient ceiling—into the abrupt
realization that something was wrong. The light was
brighter, pulsing now like a heartbeat, but it had turned a
sickly blue-green. The air in the huge cavern was as tense
and still as before a storm, a smell like the aftereffects of
lightning burned Eolair's nostrils.

Jiriki still stood before the gleaming Shard, a mote in

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER            675

the sea of blinding light—but where before he had been
as poised as a Mircha-dancer readying a rain prayer, now
his limbs were contorted, his head thrown back as though
some invisible hand was squeezing the life out of him.
Eolair rushed forward, desperately worried but unsure of
what to do. The Sitha had told the count not to touch him,
no matter what seemed to be happening, but when Eolair
drew close enough to see Jiriki's face, nearly invisible in
the great outwash of nauseating brilliance, he felt his
heart plummet. Surely this could not be what Jiriki had
planned'

The Sitha's gold-flecked eyes had rolled up, so that
only a crescent of white showed beneath the lids. His lips
were skinned back from his teeth in the snarl of a cor-
nered beast, and the writhing veins in his neck and fore-
head seemed about to burst from his skin.

"Prince Jiriki!" Eolair shouted. "Jiriki, can you hear
me'?"

The Sitha's mouth opened a little wider. His jaws
worked. A loud rumble of sound spilled out and echoed
across the great bowl, deep and unintelligible, but so ob-
viously full of pain and fear that even as Eolair clapped
his hands over his ears in desperation he felt his heart
lurch with sympathetic horror. He reached out a tentative
hand toward the Sitha and watched in amazement as the
hairs on his arm lifted straight up. His skin was tingling.

Count Eolair only thought for a moment longer. Curs-
ing himself for the fool he was, then flicking off a quick,
silent prayer to Cuamh Earthdog, he took a step forward
and grasped Jiriki's shoulders.

At the instant his fingers touched, Eolair felt himself
suddenly overrun by a titanic force from nowhere, a rush-
ing black river of terror and blood and empty voices that
poured through him, sweeping his thoughts away like a
handful of leaves in a cataract. But even in the brief mo-
ment before his real self spun out into nothingness, he
could see his hands still touching Jiriki, and saw the
Sitha, overbalanced by Eolair's weight, toppling forward
into the Shard. Jiriki touched the stone. A great bonfire of
sparks leaped up, brighter even than the blue-green radi-

676 Tad Williams

ance, a million gleaming lights like the souls of all the
fireflies in the world set free at once, dancing and swoop-
ing. Then everything faded into darkness. Eolair felt him-
self falling, falling, cast down like a stone into an endless
void....

"You live."

The relief in Jiriki's voice was clear. Eolair opened his
eyes to a pale blur that gradually became the Sitha's face
bent close to his. Jiriki's cool hands were on his temples,     f

Eolair feebly waved him off. The Sitha stepped back     J
and allowed him to sit up; Eolair was obscurely grateful     -||.
to be allowed to do it himself, even though it took him no     f
little time to steady his shaking body. His head was ham-
mering, ringing like Rhynn's cauldron in full battle cry.
He had to close his eyes for a moment to keep himself
from vomiting.

"I warned you not to touch me," Jiriki said, but there
was no displeasure in his voice. "I am sorry that you
should have suffered so for me."

"What ... what happened?"

Jiriki shook his head. There was a certain new stiffness
in his movements, but when Eolair thought of how much
longer the Sitha had endured what he himself had sur-
vived for only a moment, the count was awed. "I am not
sure," Jiriki answered. "Something did not want me to
reach the Dream Road, or did not want the Shard tam-
pered with—something with far more power or knowl-
edge than I have." He grimaced, showing his white teeth.
"I was right to warn Seoman away from the Road of
Dreams. I should have heeded my own advice, it seems-
Likimeya my mother will be furious."

"I thought you were dying." Eolair groaned. It felt as
though someone was shoeing a large plow-horse behind
his forehead.

"If you had not pushed me out of the alignment in
which I was trapped, worse than death would have
awaited me, I think." He laughed suddenly, sharply. "I
owe you the Staja Ame, Count Eolair—the White Arrow.
Sadly, someone else already has mine."

TO  GREEN  ANGEL TOWER

677

Eolair rolled toward his side and struggled to stand. It
took several tries, but at last, with Jiriki's help, which
Eolair accepted gladly this time, he managed to drag him-
self upright. The Shard again seemed quiescent, flickering
mutedly in the center of the empty arena, casting hesitant
shadows behind the stone benches. "White Arrow?" he
murmured. His head hurt, and his muscles felt as though
he had been dragged behind a can from Hernysadharc to
Crannhyr.

"I will tell you some day soon," said Jiriki- "I must
learn to live with these indignities."

Together they began to walk toward the tunnel that led
out of the arena, Eolair limping, Jiriki steadier, but still
slow. "Indignities?" Eolair asked weakly. "What do you
mean?"

"Being saved by mortals. It has become a sort of habit
for me, it seems."

The sound of their halting footsteps sent echoes flutter-
ing across the vast cavern and up among the dark places.

A

"Here, puss, puss. Come now. Grimalkin."

Rachel was a little embarrassed. She wasn't quite sure
what one said to cats—in the old days, she had expected
them to do their job keeping the rat population down, but
she had left the petting and pampering of them to her
chambermaids. As far as she had been concerned,
handing out endearments and sweetmeats was no part of
her obligation to any of her charges, two-footed or four.
But now she had a need—if admittedly a daft and soft-
headed one—and so she was humbling herself.

Thank merciful Usires no human creature is around to
see me.

"Puss, puss, puss." Rachel waved the bit of salt-beef.
She slid forward half a cubit, trying to ignore the ache in
her back and the rough stone beneath her knees. "I'm try-
ing to feed you, you Rhiap-preserve-us filthy thing." She
scowled and waggled the bit of meat. "Serve you right if
I did cook you."

678

Tad Williams

Even the cat, standing just a short distance out of Ra-
chel's reach in the middle of the corridor, seemed to know
that this was an idle threat. Not because of Rachel's soft
heart—she needed this beast to take food from her, but
otherwise would just as happily have smacked it with her
broom—but because eating cat flesh was as inconceivable
to Rachel as spitting upon a church altar. She could not
have said why exactly cat meat was different than the
flesh of rabbit or roe deer, but she did not need to. It was
not done by decent folk, and that was enough to know.

Still, in the last quarter of an hour, she had more than
once or twice toyed with the idea of kicking this recalci-
trant creature down the steep staircase and then turning to
some idea that did not require the assistance of animals.
But the most irritating thing was that even the idea itself
was of no practical use.

Rachel looked at her quivering arm and greasy fingers.
All of this to help a monster?

You 're slipping, woman. Mad as a mooncalf.

"Puss ..."

The gray cat took a few steps closer and paused, sur-
veying Rachel with eyes widened by suspicion as much
as the bright lamplight. Rachel silently said the Elysia
prayer and tried to move the beef enticingly. The cat ap-
proached warily, wrinkled its nostrils, then took a cau-
tious lick. After a moment's mock-casual washing of
whiskers, it seemed to gain courage. It reached out and
pulled loose some of the meat, stepping back to swallow
it, then came forward once more. Rachel brought up her
other hand and let it brush the cat's back. It started, but
when Rachel made no sudden move, the cat took the last
piece of beef and gulped it down. She let her fingers trail
lightly against its fur as the cat nosed her now-empty
hand questioningly. Rachel stroked it behind the ears,
gamely resisting the impulse to throttle the particular lit-
tle beast. At last, when she had worked loose a purr, she
clambered heavily to her feet.

"Tomorrow," she said. "More meat." She turned and
stumped wearily up the corridor toward her hidden room.
The cat watched her go, sniffed around on the stone floor

TO   GR&EN   ANGEL   TOWER                           679

for any scraps it might have missed, then lay down and
began to groom itself.

«

Jiriki and Eolair emerged into the light blinking like
moles. The count was already regretting his decision to
choose this entrance into the underground mines, one that
was so far from Hernysadharc. If they had come in
through the caverns where the Hemystiri had sheltered, as
he and Maegwin had the first time, they could have spent
the night in one of the recently-inhabited dens of the
cave-city, saving themselves a long ride back.

"You do not look well," the Sitha commented, which
was probably no more than the truth. Eolair's head had at
last stopped ringing, but his muscles still ached mightily.

"I do not feel well." The count looked around. There
was still a little snow on the ground, but the weather had
improved greatly in the last few days. It was tempting to
consider staying right here and traveling back to the Taig
in the morning. He squinted up at the sun. Only mid-
afternoon: their time underground had seemed much
longer ... if this was still the same day. He grinned
sourly at the thought. Better a painful ride back to the
Taig, he decided, than a night in the still-cold wildlands.

The horses, Eolair's bay gelding and Jiriki's white
charger, which had feathers and bells braided into its
mane, stood cropping the meager grass, stretched to the
ends of their long tethers. It was the work of only a few
moments to make them ready, then human and Sitha
spurred away toward the southeast and Hernysadharc.

"The air seems different," Eolair called. "Can you feel
it?"

"Yes." Jiriki lifted his head like a hunting beast scent-
ing the breeze. "But I do not know what it might mean."

"It's warmer. That's enough for me."

By the time they reached the outskirts of Hernysadharc,
the sun had finally slipped down behind the Grianspog
and the base of the sky was losing its ruddiness. They

68o Tad Williams

rode side by side up the Taig Road, threading through the
not inconsiderable foot- and cart-traffic. Seeing his peo-
ple once more out and about their business eased the pain
of Eolair's aches. Things were far from ordinary, and
most of the people on the road had the gaunt, staring look
of the hungry, but they were traveling freely in their own
country again. Many seemed to have come from the mar-
ket; they clutched their acquisitions jealously, even if they
held no more than a handful of onions.

"So what did you leam?" Eolair asked at last.

"From the Shard? Much and little." Jiriki saw the
count's expression and laughed. "Ah, you look like my
mortal friend Seoman Snowlock! It is true, we Dawn
Children do not give satisfactory answers."

"Seoman... ?"

"Your kind call him 'Simon,' I think." Jiriki nodded his
head, milk-white hair dancing in the wind. "He is a
strange cub, but brave and good-natured. He is clever,
too, although he hides it well."

"I met him, I think. He is with Josua Lackhand at the
Stone—at Ses ... Sesu ..." He gestured, trying to sum-
mon the name.

"Sesuad'ra. Yes, that is him. Young, but he has been
caught up by too many currents for chance alone to be the
explanation. He will have a part to play in things." Jiriki
stared into the east, as if looking for the mortal boy there.
"Amerasu—our First Grandmother—invited him into her
house. That was a great honor indeed."

Eolair shook his head. "He seemed little more than a
tall and somewhat awkward young man when I met
him—but I stopped putting trust in appearances long
ago."

Jiriki smiled. "You are one in whom the old Hemystm
blood runs strong, then. Let me consider what I found in
the Shard a while longer. Then, if you come with me to
see Likimeya, I will share my thoughts with both of you."

As they made their way up Hern's Hilt, Eolair saw
someone walking slowly across the damp grass. He raised
his hand.

"A moment, please." Eolair passed the Sitha his reins,

681

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER

then swung down from his saddle and walked after the
figure, which bent every few moments as though plucking
flowers from among the grass-stems. A loose scatter of
birds hovered behind, swooping down and then starting
up again with a flurry of wings.

"Maegwin?" Eolair called. She did not stop, so he hur-
ried his steps to catch up to her. "Maegwin," he said as he
came abreast of her. "Are you well?"

Lluth's daughter turned to look at him. She was wear-
ing a dark cloak, but beneath it was a dress of bright yel-
low. Her belt buckle was a sunflower of hammered gold.
She looked pretty and at peace. "Count Eolair," she said
calmly, and smiled, then bent at the waist and let another
handful of seed corn dribble from her fist.

"What are you doing?"

"Planting flowers. The long battle with winter has
withered even Heaven's blooms." She stooped and sprin-
kled more corn. Behind her, the birds fought noisily over
the kernels.

"What do you mean, 'Heaven's blooms'?"

She looked up at him curiously. "What a strange ques-
tion. But think, Eolair, of what beautiful flowers will
spring from these seeds. Think'of how it will look when
the gardens of the gods are a-blossom once more."

Eolair stared at her helplessly for a moment. Maegwin
continued to walk forward, sprinkling the corn in little
piles as she went. The birds, stuffed but not yet sated, fol-
lowed her. "But you are on Hem's Hill," he said. "You
are in Hemysadharc, the place where you grew up!"

Maegwin paused and pulled her cloak a little tighter.
"You do not look well, Eolair. That is not right. Nobody
should be ill in a place like this."

Jiriki was making his way lightly across the grass lead-
ing the two horses. He stopped a short distance away, un-
willing to intrude.

To Eolair's surprise, Maegwin turned to the Sitha and
dropped into a curtsy. "Welcome, Lord Brynioch," she
called, then rose and lifted her hand to the reddening
western horizon. "What a beautiful sky you have made
for us today. Thank you, 0 Bright One."

682 Tad Williams

' Jiriki said nothing, but looked to Eolair with a catlike
expression of calm curiosity.

"Do you not know who this is?" the count asked
Maegwin. "This is Jiriki of the Sithi. He is no god, but
one of those who saved us from Skali." When she did not
reply, but only smiled indulgently, his voice rose.
"Maegwin, this is not Brynioch. You are not among the
gods. This is Jiriki—immortal, but of flesh and blood just
like you and I."

Maegwin turned her sly smile onto the Sitha. "Good
my Lord, Eolair seems fevered. Did you perhaps take him
too close to the sun on your journeying today?"

The Count of Nad Mullach stared. Was she truly mad
or playing some unfathomable game? He had never seen
anything like this. "Maegwin!" he snapped.

Jiriki touched his arm. "Come with me, Count Eolair.
We will talk."

Maegwin curtsied again. "You are kind. Lord
Brynioch. I will continue with my task now, if I have
your leave. It is little enough to repay your kindness and
hospitality."

Jiriki nodded. Maegwin turned and continued her slow
walk across the hillside.

"Gods help me," Eolair said. "She is mad! It is worse
than I had feared."

"Even one who is not of your kind could see that she
is gravely troubled."

"What can I do?" the count mourned. "What if she
does not recover her wits?"

"I have a friend—a cousin, by your terms—who is a
healer," Jiriki offered. "I do not know that this young
woman's problem can be helped by her, but there could
be no harm in trying, I think."

He watched Eolair clamber back into his saddle, then
mounted his own horse in a single, fluid movement and
led the silent count up the hillside toward the Taig.

A

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER                           683

When she heard the approaching footfalls, Rachel al-
most pushed herself farther back into the shadows before
she remembered that it would make no difference. In-
wardly, she cursed herself for a fool.

The steps were slow, as if the one making them was
very weak or was carrying a huge burden.

"Now where are we going?" It was a harsh whisper,
deep and rough, a voice that was not used very often.
"Going. Where are we going? Very well, then, I'm com-
ing." There was a thin wheeze of sound that might have
been laughing or crying.

Rachel held her breath. The cat appeared first, head up,
certain now after nearly a week that what was waiting
was dinner rather than danger. The man followed a mo-
ment later, trudging forward out of the shadows into the
lamplight. His pale, scarred face was covered in a long,
gray-shot beard and the parts of him that were not cov-
ered by his ragged, filthy clothes were starvation-thin. His
eyes were closed.

"Slow down," he said raspingly. "I'm weak. Can't go
fast." He stopped, as though he sensed the lamplight on
his face, on the lids of his ruined eyes. "Where are you,
cat?" he quavered.

Rachel leaned down to pet the cat, which was butting
at her ankle, then slipped it a bit of its expected salt-beef.
She straightened up.

"Earl Guthwulf." Her voice seemed so loud after
Guthwulf's whisper that it even shocked her. The man
flinched and fell back, almost toppling over, but instead
of turning to run he raised his trembling hands before
him.

"Leave me alone, you damnable things'" be cried.
"Haunt someone else! Leave me with my misery! Let the
sword have me if it wants."

"Don't run, Guthwulf!" Rachel said hastily, but at the
renewed sound of her voice, the earl turned and begin to
stagger back down the corridor.

'There will be food for you here," she called after him.
The tattered apparition did not answer, but vanished into
the shadows beyond the lampglow. "I will leave it and

684

Tad Williams

then go away. I will do that every day! You do not need

to speak to me!"

When the echoes had died, she put down a small help-
ing of jerked meat for the cat, which began to chew hun-
grily. The bowl full of meat and dried fruit she placed in
a dusty alcove on the wall, above the cat's reach, but
where the living scarecrow could not fail to find it when
he worked up the nerve to return.

Still not quite sure what her own purpose was, Rachel
picked up her lamp and started back toward the stairwell
that would lead to the higher, more familiar parts of the
castle's labyrinth. Now she had done it and it was too late
to turn back. But why had she done it? She would have to
risk the upper castle again, since the stores she had laid in
were planned to feed one frugal person only, not two
adults and a cat with a bottomless stomach.

"Rhiap, save me from myself," she grumbled.

Perhaps it was the fact that it was the only charity she
could perform in these terrible days—although Rachel
had never been obsessed with charity, since so many men-
dicants were, as far as she could tell, perfectly able-
bodied and most likely merely frightened of work. But
perhaps it was charity after all- Times had changed, and
Rachel had changed, too.

Or perhaps she was just lonely, she reflected. She
snorted at herself and hurried up the corridor.

23

Tfte Soimdmg of the Horn

*

Several odd tfwWS happened in the days after Prin-
cess Miriamele and Rer companions arrived at Sesuad'ra.

The first and least important was the change that came
over Lenti, Count Streawe's messenger. The beetle-
browed Perdruinese man had spent his first days in New
Gadrinsett strutting around the small marketplace, annoy-
ing the local women and picking fights with the mer-
chants. He had shown several people his knives, with the
thinly-veiled implication that he was prone to use them
when the mood was upon him.

However, when Duke Isgrimnur arrived with the prin-
cess, Lenti immediately retired to the tent he had been
given as his billet and did not come out for some time- It
took a great deal of coaxing to get him to emerge even to
receive Josua's reply to his master Streawe, and when
Lenti saw that the duke was to be present, the knife-
flourishing messenger became weak in the knees and
had to be allowed to sit down for Josua's instructions-
Apparently—or so the story was later told in the mar-
ket—he and Isgrimnur had met before, and Lenti had
not found the acquaintanceship a pleasant one. Once
given a reply for his master, Lenti left Sesuad'ra hur-
riedly. Neither he nor anyone else much regretted his de-
parture.

The second and far more astounding event was Duke
Isgrimnur's announcement that the old man he had
brought to Sesuad'ra out of the south was in fact
Camaris-sa-Vinitta, the greatest hero of the Johannine

686 Tad Williams

Age. It was whispered throughout the settlement that
when Josua was told this on the evening of the return, he
fell to his knees before the old man and kissed his hand—
which seemed proof enough that Isrimnur spoke truly.
Oddly, however, the nominal Sir Camaris seemed almost
entirely unmoved by Josua's gesture. Conflicting rumors
quickly swept through the community of N,ew
Gadrinsett—the old man had been wounded in the head,
he had gone mad from drink or sorcery or any number of
other possible reasons, even that he had taken a vow of

silence.

The third and saddest occurrence was the death of old
Towser. On the same night that Miriamele and the others
returned, the ancient jester died in his sleep. Most agreed
that the excitement had been too much for his heart.
Those who knew the terrors through which Towser had
already passed with the rest of Josua's company of survi-
vors were not so sure, but he was after all a very old man,
and his passing appeared to be natural. Josua spoke
kindly of him at the burial two days later, reminding the
small party gathered there of Towser's long service to
King John. It was noted by some, though, that despite the
prince's generous eulogy, the jester was interred near the
other casualties of the recent battle rather than beside
Deornoth in the garden of Leavetaking House.

The harper Sangfugol made sure that the old man was
buried with a lute as well as his tattered motley, in mem-
ory of how Towser had taught him his musical art. To-
gether, Sangfugol and Simon also gathered snowflowers,
which they scattered atop the dark earth after the grave
was filled.

A

"It's sad that he should die just when Camaris had re-
turned." Miriamele was stringing the remaining snow-
flowers, which Simon had given to her, into a delicate
necklace. "One of the few people he knew in the old
days, and they never had a chance to talk. Not that
Camaris would have said anything, I suppose."

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

687

Simon shook his head. "Towser did speak to Camaris,
Princess." He paused. Her title still felt strange, especially
when she sat before him in the flesh, living, breathing.
"When Towser saw him—even before Isgrimnur said who
it was—Towser went pale. He stood in front of Camaris
for a moment, rubbing his hands like this, then whispered,
'I did not tell anyone. Lord, I swear!' Then he went off to
his tent. Nobody heard him say it but me, I think. I had
no idea what it meant—I still don't."

Miriamele nodded. "I suppose we never will, now."
She glanced at him, then immediately dropped her gaze
back to her flowers.

Simon thought she was prettier than ever. Her golden
hair, the dye now worn away, was boyishly short, but he
rather liked how it emphasized the firm, sharp line of her
chin and her green eyes. Even the slightly more serious
expression she now wore just made her all the more ap-
pealing. He admired her, that was the word, but there was
nothing he could do with his feelings. He longed to pro-
tect her from anything and everything, but at the same
time he knew very well that she would never allow any-
one to treat her as though she were a helpless child.

Simon sensed something else changed in Miriamele as
well. She was still kind and courteous, but there was a re-
moteness to her that he did not remember, an air of re-
straint. The old balance forged between the two of them
seemed to have been altered, but he did not quite under-
stand what had replaced it. Miriamele seemed a little
more distant, yet at the same time more aware of him
than she had ever been before, almost as though he fright-
ened her in some way.

He could not help staring at her, so he was grateful that
for the moment her attention was fixed on the flowers in
her lap. It was so strange to face the real Miriamele after
all the months of remembering and imagining that he
found it hard to think clearly in her presence. Now that
the first week since her return had passed, a little of the
awkwardness seemed to be gone, but there was still a gap
between them. Even back in Naglimund, when he had

688 Tad Williams

first seen her as the king's daughter she was, there had
not been this quality of separation.

Simon had told her—not without some pride—of his
many adventures in the last half-year; to his surprise, he
had then discovered that Miriamele's experiences had
been almost as wildly improbable as his own.

At first he had decided that the horrors of her
journey—the kilpa and ghants, the deaths of Dinivan and
Lector Ranessin, her not-quite-explained confinement on
the ship of some Nabbanai nobleman—were quite enough
to explain the wall that he felt between them. Now he was
not so sure- They had been friends, and even if they could
never be more than that, the friendship had been real,
hadn't it? Something had happened to make her treat him
differently.

Could it be me, Simon wondered. Could I have
changed so much that she doesn't like me anymore?

He unthinkingly stroked his beard. Miriamele looked
up, caught his eye, and smiled mockingly. He felt a pleas-
ant warmth: it was almost like seeing her in her old guise
as Marya, the servant girl.

"You're certainly proud of that, aren't you?"

"What? My beard?" Simon was suddenly glad he had
kept it, for he was blushing. "It Just ... sort of grew."

"Mmmm. By surprise? Overnight?"

"What's wrong with it?" he asked, stung. "I'm a
knight, by the Bloody Tree! Why shouldn't I have a
beard!"

"Don't swear. Not in front of ladies, and especially not
in front of princesses." She gave him a look that was
meant to be stem, but was spoiled in its effect somehow
by her suppressed smile. "Besides, even if you are a
knight, Simon—and I suppose I'll have to take your word
for that until I remember to ask Uncle Josua—that doesn't
mean you're old enough to grow a beard without looking
silly."

"Ask Josua9 You can ask anyone!" Simon was torn be-
tween pleasure at seeing her act a little more like her old
self and irritation at what she had said. "Not old enough!
I'm almost sixteen years! Will be in another fortnight, on

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER                           689

Saint Yistrin's day!" He had only just realized himself
that it was near when Father Strangyeard had made a re-
mark about the saint's upcoming holy day.

"Truly?" Miriamele's look became serious. "I had
my sixteenth birthday while we were traveling to
Kwanitupul. Cadrach was very nice—he stole a jam-tan
and some Lakeland pinks for me—but it wasn't much of
a celebration."

"That thieving villain," Simon growled. He still had
not forgotten his purse and the shame he had endured
over its loss, no matter how much had happened since
then.

"Don't say that." Miriamele was suddenly sharp. "You
don't know anything about him, Simon. He has suffered
much. His life has been hard."

Simon made a noise of disgust. "He's suffered!? What
about the people he steals from?"

Miriamele's eyes narrowed. "I don't want you to say
another word about Cadrach. Not a word."

Simon opened his mouth, then shut it again. Damn me,
he thought, you can get in trouble with girls so quickly!
It's like they're all practicing to grow up to be Rachel the
Dragon?

He took a breath. "I'm sorry your birthday wasn't very
nice."

She eyed him for a moment, then relented. "Perhaps
when yours comes, Simon, we can both celebrate. We can
give each other gifts, like they do in Nabban."

"You already gave me one." He reached into the pocket
of his cloak and removed a wisp of blue cloth. "Do you
remember? When I was leaving to go north with Binabik
and the others."

Miriamele stared at it for a moment. "You kept it?" she
asked quietly.

"Of course. I wore it the whole time, practically. Of
course I kept it."

Her eyes widened, then she turned away and rose ab-
ruptly from the stone bench. "I have to go, Simon," she
said in an odd tone of voice. She would not meet his eye.
"Your pardon, please." She swept up her skirts and

690 Tad Williams

moved swiftly off across the black and white tiles of the
Fire Garden.

"Damn me," said Simon. Things had seemed to be go-
ing well at last. What had he done? When would he ever
learn to understand women?

*

Binabik, as the nearest thing to a full-fledged Scroll-
bearer, took the oaths of Tiamak and Father Strangyeard.
When they had sworn, he in turn spoke his oath to them.
Geloe looked on sardonically as the litanies were spo-
ken. She had never held much with the formalities of
the League, which was one reason she had never been a
Scrollbearer, despite the immense respect in which she
was held by its members. There were other reasons as
well, but Geloe never spoke of those, and all of her old
comrades who might have been able to explain were now
gone.

Tiamak was torn between pleasure and disappointment.
He had long dreamed that this might happen someday, but
in his imagination he had received his scroll-and-pen
from Morgenes, with Jarnauga and Ookequk beaming
their approval. Instead he had brought Dinivan's pendant
up from Kwanitupul himself after Isgrimnur delivered it,
and now he sat with the largely unproved successors of
those other great souls.

Still, there was something unutterably exciting even in
such a humble realization of his dream. Perhaps this
would be a day long remembered—the coming of a new
generation to the League, a new membership which
would make the Scrollbearers as important and respected
as they had been in the days of Eahlstan Fiskerne him-
self. .. '

Tiamak's stomach growled. Geloe turned her yellow
eyes on him and he smiled shamefacedly. In the excite-
ment of the morning's preparations he had forgotten to
eat. Embarrassment spread through him. There! That was
They Who Watch and Shape reminding him of how im-
portant he was. A new age, indeed—those gathered here

1                  TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER            69!

J   would have to labor mightily to be half the Scrollbearers
f   that their predecessors had been. That would teach
a"  Tiamak, the savage from Village Grove, to allow himself
to become so heady!

His stomach growled again. Tiamak avoided Geloe's
eye this time and pulled his knees closer in to his body,
huddling on the mat floor of Strangyeard's tent like a pot-
tery merchant on a cold day.

"Binabik has asked me to speak," Geloe said when the
oaths were done. She was brisk, like an Elder's wife ex-
plaining chores and babies to a new bride. "Since I am
the only one who knew all the other Scrollbearers, I have
agreed." The fierceness in her stare did not make Tiamak
particularly comfortable. He had only corresponded with
the forest woman before his arrival in Sesuad'ra, and had
possessed no idea of the force of her presence. Now, he
was frantically trying to remember the letters he had sent
her and hoping that they had all been suitably courteous.
She was clearly not the sort of person one wanted to up-
set.

"You have become Scrollbearers in what may be the
most difficult age the world has yet seen, worse even than
Fingil's era of conquest and pillage and destruction of
knowledge. You have all heard enough now to understand
that what is happening seems clearly far more than a war
between princes. Elias of Erkynland has somehow en-
listed the aid of Ineluki Storm King, whose undead hand
has reached down out of the Nornfells at last, as Ealhstan
Fiskeme feared centuries ago. That is the task set before
us—to somehow prevent that evil from turning a fight be-
tween brothers into a losing struggle against utter dark-
ness. And the first part of that task, it seems, is to solve
the riddle of the blades."

The discussion of Misses* sword-rhyme went far into
the afternoon. By the time Binabik thought to find some-
thing for them all to eat, Morgenes' precious manuscript
was scattered about Strangyeard's tent, virtually every
page having been held up for scrutiny and argued over
until the incense-scented air seemed to ring.

692 Tad Williams

Tiamak saw now that Morgenes' message to him must
have referred to the rhyme of the Three Swords. The
Wrannaman had thought it impossible that anyone could
have knowledge of his own secret treasure: it was clear
that no one had. Still, if he hadn't already developed a
scholar's healthy respect for coincidence, this day's reve-
lations would have convinced him. When bread and wine
had been passed around, and the sharper disagreements
had been softened by full mouths and the necessity of
sharing a jug, Tiamak at last spoke up.

"I have found something myself that I hope you will
look at." He placed his cup down carefully and then with-
drew the leaf-wrapped parchment from his sack. "I found
this in the marketplace at Kwanitupul. I had hoped to take
it to Dinivan in Nabban to see what he would say." He
unrolled it with great caution as the other three moved
forward to look. Tiamak felt the son of worried pride a
father might feel on first bringing his child before the
Elders to have the Naming confirmed.

Strangyeard sighed. "Blessed Elysia, is it real?"

Tiamak shook his head. "If it is not, it is a very care-
ful forgery. In my years in Perdruin, I saw many writ-
ings from Nisses' time. These are Rimmersgard runes
as someone in that age would have written them. See
the backward spirals." He pointed with a trembling fin-
ger.

Binabik squinted. ". . . From Nuanni's Rocke Gar-
den ..." he read.

"I think that it means the Southern Islands," Tiamak
said. "Nuanni -.."

"—Was the old Nabbanai god of the sea." Strangyeard
was so excited that he interrupted—an amazing thing
from the diffident priest. "Of course—Nuanni's rock
garden—the islands! But what does the rest mean?"

As the others bent close, already arguing, Tiamak felt a
glow of pride. His child had met with the Elders' ap-
proval.

*

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

693

"It's not enough to stand our ground." Duke Isgrimnur
sat on a stool facing Josua in the prince's darkened tent.
"You have won an important victory, but it means little to
Elias. Another few months and no one will remember it
ever happened."

Josua frowned. "I understand. That is why I will call
the Raed."

Isgrimnur shook his head, beard wagging. "That's not
enough, if you'll pardon my saying so. I'm being blunt."

The prince smiled faintly. 'That is your task, Isgrimnur."

"So then let me say what I need to say. We need more
victories, and soon. If we do not push Elias back, it won't
matter whether this 'three swords' nonsense will work or
not."

"Do you really think it is nonsense?"

"After all I've seen in the last year? No, I wouldn't
quickly call anything nonsense in these times—but that
misses the point. As long as we sit here like a treed cat,
we have no way to get to Bright-Nail." The duke snorted.
"Dror's Mallet! I am still not used to thinking that John's
blade is really Minneyar. You could have knocked my
head off with a goose feather when you told me that."

"We all must become used to surprises, it seems,"
Josua said dryly. "But what do you suggest?"

"Nabban." Isgrimnur spoke without hesitation. "I
know, I should urge you to hasten to Elvritshalla to free
my people there. But you're right in your fears. If what I
have heard is true, half the able-bodied men in
Rimmersgard were forced into Skali's army: it would
mean a drawn-out struggle to beat him. Kaldskryke's a
hard man, a canny fighter. I hate his treacherous innards,
but I'd be the last to call him an easy match."

"But the Sithi have ridden to Hemystir," Josua pointed
out. "You heard that."

"And what does that mean? I can make neither hide
nor hair of the lad Simon's stories, and that white-haired
Sitha witch-girl doesn't strike me as the kind of scout
whose information should be used to plan an entire cam-
paign," The duke grimaced. "In any case, if the Sithi and
the Hemystiri drive Skali out, wonderful. I will cheer

694

Tad Williams

louder and longer than any. But those of Skali's men we
would even want to recruit will still be scattered far and
wide across the Frostmarch: even with the weather get-
ting a little better, I would not want to have to try to
round them up and convince them to attack Erkynland.
And they're my people. It's my country, Josua ... so
you'd better listen to what I say." He worked his bushy
eyebrows furiously, as if the mere thought of the prince's
possible disagreement called his own good sense into
question.

The prince sighed. "I always listen to you, Isgrimnur.
You taught me tactics as you held me on your knee, re-
member."

"I'm not that much older than you, pup," the duke
grumbled. "If you don't mind your manners, I'll take you
out in the snow and give you an embarrassing lesson."

Josua grinned. "I think we will have to put that off for
some other day. Ah, but it is good to have you back with
me, Isgrimnur." His expression grew more sober. "So,
then, you say Nabban. How?"

Isgrimnur slid his stool closer and dropped his voice.
"Streawe's message said the time is right—that Benigaris
is very unpopular. Rumors of the part he played in his fa-
ther's death are everywhere."

"The armies of the Kingfisher Crest will not desert be-
cause of rumors," said Josua. "There have been more than
a few other patricides who ruled in Nabban, remember. It
is hard to shock those people. In any case, the elite offi-
cers of the army are loyal to the Benidrivine House above
all. They will fight any foreign usurper—even Elias, were
he to assert his power directly. They certainly would not
throw Benigaris over on my behalf. Surely you remember
the old Nabbanai saying, 'Better our whoreson than your
saint.' "

Isgrimnur grinned wickedly in his whiskers. "Ah, but
who is talking about convincing them to throw Benigaris
over for your sake, my prince? Merciful Aedon, they'd let
Nessalanta lead the armies before they'd let you do it."

Josua shook his head in irritation. "Well, who, then?"

"Camaris, damn you!" Isgrimnur thumped his wide

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER                           695

hand down on his thigh for emphasis. "He's the legiti-
mate heir to the ducal throne—Leobardis only became
duke because Camaris disappeared and was thought
dead!"

The prince stared at his old friend. "But he's mad,
Isgrimnur—or at least simple-minded."

The duke sat up. "They've accepted a cowardly patri-
cide. Why wouldn't they prefer a heroic simpleton?"

Josua shook his head again, this time in wonder. "You
are astounding, Isgrimnur. Where did you set such an

' -l    o?f                                                                —

idea?

Isgrimnur grinned fiercely. "I've had a lot of time to
think since I found Camaris in that inn at Kwanitupul."
He ran his fingers through his beard. "It's a pity that
Eolair isn't here to see what a skulker and intriguer I've
become in my old age."

The prince laughed. "Well, I'm not certain that it
would work, but it bears thinking about at least." He rose
and walked to the table. "Would you like some more
wine?"

Isgrimnur raised his goblet. 'Thinking is thirsty work.
Fill it, would you?"

A

"It is prise'a—Ever-fresh." Aditu lifted the slender
vine to show Simon the pale blue flower. "Even after it
has been picked, it does not wilt, not until the season has
passed. It is said that it came from the Garden on our peo-
ple's boats."

"Some of the women here wear it in their hair."

"As do our folk—men and women both," the Sitha re-
plied with an amused glance.

"Please, hello!" someone called. Simon turned to see
Tiamak, Miriamele's Wrannaman friend. The small man
seemed tremendously excited. "Prince Josua wishes you
to come. Sir Simon, Lady Aditu." He started to sketch a
bow, but was too full of nervous exhilaration to complete
it, "Oh, please hurry!"

"What is it?" asked Simon. "Is something wrong!"

696

Tad Williams

"We have found something important, we think." He
bounced on his tiptoes, anxious to be going. "In my
parchment—mine!"

Simon shook his head. "What parchment?"

"You will learn all. Come to Josua's tent! Please!"
Tiamak turned and began trotting back toward the settle-
ment.

Simon laughed. "What a strange man! You'd think he
had a bee in his breeches."

Aditu set the vine carefully back into place. She lifted
her fingers to her nose. "This reminds me of my house in
Jao e-Tinukai'i," she said. "Every room is filled with
flowers."

"I remember."

They made their way back across the hilltop. The sun
seemed quite strong today, and though the northern hori-
zon was aswim with gray clouds, the sky overhead was
blue. Almost no snow remained except in the hollows of
the hillside below them, the deep places where shadows
lingered late into the day. Simon wondered where
Miriamele was: he had gone looking for her in the morn-
ing, hoping to convince her to take a walk with him, but
she had been absent, her tent empty. Duchess Outrun had
told him that the princess had gone out early.

Josua's tent was crowded. Beside Tiamak stood Geloe,
Father Strangyeard, and Binabik. The prince sat on his
stool, looking closely at a parchment which was spread
across his lap. Vorzheva sat near the far wall, stitching at
a piece of cloth. Aditu, after nodding her greetings to the
others, left Simon and went to join her.

Josua glanced up briefly from the parchment. "I am
glad you are here, Simon. I hope you can help us."

"How, Prince Josua?"

The prince raised his hand without looking up again.
"First you must hear what we have found."

Tiamak inched forward shyly. "Please, Prince Josua,
may I tell what has happened?"

Josua smiled at the Wrannaman. "When Miriamele and
Isgrimnur arrive, you may."

Simon eased over next to Binabik, who was talking

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER                           697

with Geioe. Simon waited as patiently as he could and lis-
tened to them discuss runes and errors of translation until
he was nearly bursting. At last the Duke of Elvritshalla
arrived with the princess. Her short hair was wind-tousled
and her cheeks had a delicate flush. Simon could not help
staring at her, full of mute longing.

"I had to climb halfway down this damnable hill to
find her," Isgrimnur muttered. "I hope this is worth it."

"You could have just called to me and I would have
come up," Miriamele replied sweetly. "You didn't have to
nearly kill yourself."

"I didn't like where you were climbing. I was afraid I'd
startle you."

"And having a huge, sweating Rimmersman come
crashing down the hillside wouldn't startle me?"

"Please." Josua's voice was a little strained. "This is
not the time for teasing. It is worth it, Isgrimnur—or I
hope it will be." He turned to the Wrannaman and handed
him the parchment. "Explain to the newcomers, Tiamak,
if you will."

The slender man, his eyes bright, quickly described
how he had acquired the parchment, then showed them
the ancient runes before reading it aloud.

". . . Bring from Nuanni 's Rocke Garden,

The Man who tho' Blinded canne See

Discover the Blayde that delivers The Rose

At the foote of the Rimmer 's great Tree

Find the Call whose lowde Claime

Speaks the Call-bearer's name

In a Shippe on the Shallowest Sea—

—When Blayde, Call, and Man

Come to Prince's right Hande

Then the Prisoned shall once more go Free ..."

Finished, he looked around the room. "We ..." He hes-
itated. "We ... Scrollbearers ... have discussed this and
what it might mean. If Nisses' other words are important
for our purposes, it seemed likely that these might be,
too."

698

Tad Williams

"So what does it mean?" Isgrimnur demanded. "I
looked at it before and couldn't make homs nor hind-
quarter out of it."

"You were not having the advantage that some others
were having," said Binabik. "Simon and myself and some
others were already facing one part of this riddle for our-
selves." The troll turned to Simon. "Have you seen it
yet?"

Simon thought hard. "The Rimmer's Tree—the
Uduntree!" He looked over to Miriamele with more than
a little pride. "That's where we found Thorn!"

Binabik nodded- The tent had grown quiet. "Yes—the
'blade that delivers the Rose' was being found there," the
troll said. "The sword of Camaris called Thom."

"Ebekah, John's wife." Isgrimnur breathed. "The Rose
of Hemysadharc." He pulled vigorously at his beard, "Of
course!" he said to Josua. "Camaris was your mother's
special protector."

"So we were seeing that the rhyme spoke in part of
Thorn," Binabik agreed.

"But the rest," said Tiamak, "we think we know, but
we are not sure."

Geloe leaned forward. "It seems possible that if the
rhyme speaks of Thom, it may also speak of Camaris
himself. A 'man who though blinded can see' could cer-
tainly describe a man who is blind to his past, even his
own name, although he sees as well as anyone here."

"Better," said Miriamele quietly.

"That seems right." Isgrimnur scowled, considering. "I
don't know how such a thing could be in some old book
from hundreds of years ago, but it seems right."

"So what does that leave us?" Josua asked. "This part
about 'the Call' and the last lines about the prisoned go-
ing free."

A moment of silence followed his remark.

Simon cleared his throat. "Well, perhaps this is stupid,"
he began.

"Speak, Simon," Binabik urged him.

"If one part is about Camaris, and another is about his

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

sword—maybe the other parts are about other things of
his and other places he's been."

Josua smiled. "That is not at all stupid, Simon. That is
what we think, too. And we even think we know what the
Call might be."

From her seat by the far wall, Aditu suddenly laughed,
a clear, musical trill like falling water. "So you did re-
member to give it to them, Seoman. I was afraid you
might forget. You were very tired and sad when we
parted."

"Give it to them?" said Simon, confused. "What... ?"
He stopped short. "The hom!"

"The hom," Josua said. "Amerasu's gift to us, a gift we
could see no use for."

"But how does that fit with the call-bearer's
name... ?" Simon asked.

"It was under our noses, so to speak," Tiamak said.
"When Isgrimnur found Camaris at the inn in
Kwanitupul, he was called 'Ceallio'—that means 'shout'
or 'call' in the Perdruinese tongue- The famous hom of
Camaris was named 'Cellian,' which is the same thing in
the Nabbanai tongue."

Aditu rose, smoothly as a hawk taking wing. "It was
called Cellian by mortals only. It has a far older name
than that—its true name, its name of Making. The hom
that Amerasu sent you belonged to the Sithi long before
your Camaris sounded it in battle. It is called Ti-tuno."

"But how did it come to be in Camaris' hands?"
Miriamele asked. "And if he had it, how did the Sithi get
it back again?"

"I can answer the first part of your question easily,"
Aditu told her. "Ti-tuno was made of the dragon
Hidohebhi's tooth, the black worm that Hakatri and
Ineluki slew. When Prince Sinnach of the mortal
Hernystiri came to our aid before the battle of Ach
Samrath, lyu'unigato of Year-Dancing House gave it to
him as a token of gratitude, a gift from friend to friend."

When Aditu paused, Binabik looked for her permission
to continue. When she nodded, he spoke. "Many centu-
ries after Asu'a was falling, when John came to his power

700 Tad Williams

in Erkynland, he was having the chance to make the
Hernystiri his vassals. He did not choose to do that thing,
and in gratitude King Llythinn sent the horn Ti-tuno as
part of Ebekah's bridal dower when she was sent for be-
ing Prester John's wife." He raised his small hand in a
gesture of gift giving. "Camaris was guarding her on that
journey, and brought her with safety to Erkynland. John
was finding his Hemystiri bride so beautiful that he gave
the horn to Camaris to commemorate the day of her com-
ing to the Hayholt." He waved his hand again, a broader
flourish, as though he had painted a picture he now
wished the others to admire. "As for how it was returned
to Amerasu and the Sithi—well, perhaps that is a story
Camaris himself can be telling to us. But that is where it
was brought from: the 'ship on the shallowest sea.' "
"I do not understand that part," Isgrimnur said.
Aditu smiled. "Jao e-Tinukai'i means 'Boat on the
Ocean of Trees.' It is hard to imagine an ocean shallower
than one with no water."

Simon was growing confused by the flood of words
and the changing litany of speakers. "What do you mean
when you say Camaris can tell the story, Binabik? I
thought Camaris couldn't talk—that he was mute, or mad,
or under a spell."

"Perhaps he is being all those things," the troll replied.
"But it is also perhaps true that the last line of the poem
is speaking to us about Camaris himself—that when these
things are brought together, he will be then released from
the prison of sons that he is in. We hope it will be bring-
ing back his wits."

Again the room fell silent for several heartbeats.
"Of course," Josua added at last, "there is still the
problem of how that will come to be, if the second-to-last
line is to be believed." He held up his arms—his left hand
with Elias' manacle still clasped about the wrist, his right
arm that ended in a leather-clad stump. "As you can see,"
he said, "the one thing this prince does not have is a right
hand." He allowed himself a mocking grin. "But we hope
that it is not meant to be taken word for word. Perhaps
just bringing them into my presence will do the trick."

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER                           70!

"I tried to show Camaris the blade Thorn once al-
ready," Isgrimnur remembered. "Thought it might jog
his mind, if you see my meaning. But he wouldn't go
near it. Acted like it was a poisonous snake. Pulled free
and walked right out of the room." He paused. "But
maybe when everything is together, the horn and all,
maybe then ..."

"Well?" said Miriamele. "Why don't we try it, then?"

"Because we can't," Josua said grimly. "We have lost
the hom."

"What?" Simon looked up to see if, improbably, the
prince might be joking. "How can that be?"

"It vanished sometime during the battle with
Fengbald," Josua said. "It is one of the reasons I wanted
you here, Simon. I thought you might have taken it back
for safekeeping."

Simon shook his head. "I was glad to be rid of it,
Prince Josua. I was so afraid that I had doomed us all by
forgetting to give it to you. No, I haven't seen it."

No one else in the tent had either. "So," Josua said at
last. "We must search for it, then—but quietly. If there is
a traitor in our midst, or even just a thief, we must not let
him know that it is an important thing or we may never
recover it."

Aditu laughed again. This time it seemed shockingly
out of place. "I am sorry," she said. "but this is something
that the rest of the Zida'ya would never believe. To have
lost Ti-tuno!"

"It's not funny," Simon growled. "Besides, can't you
use some magic or something to locate it?"

Aditu shook her head. "Things do not work that way,
Seoman. I tried to explain that to you once before. And I
am sorry to laugh. I will help look for it."

She didn't look very sorry, Simon thought. But if he
couldn't understand mortal women, how could he ever in
a thousand years hope to understand Sithi women?

The company slowly filed out of Josua's tent, talking
quietly among themselves. Simon waited for Miriamele
outside. When she emerged, he fell in beside her.

"So they are going to give Camaris back his memo-

702 Tad Williams

ries." Miriamele looked distracted and tired, as though
she had not slept much the night before.

"If we can find the horn, I suppose we'll try." Simon
was secretly quite pleased that Miriamele had been
present to see how involved he was in Prince Josua's
counsels.

Miriamele turned to look at him, her expression accu-
satory. "And what if he doesn't want those memories
back?" she demanded. "What if he is happy now, for the
first time in his life?"

Simon was startled, but could think of no reply. They
walked back across the settlement in silence until
Miriamele said good-bye and went off to walk by herself.
Simon was left wondering at what she had said. Did
Miriamele, too, have memories that she would be just as
happy to lose?

A

Josua was standing in the garden behind Leavetaking
House when Miriamele found him. He was staring into
the sky, across which the clouds were drawn in long rib-
bons like torn linen.

"Uncle Josua?"

He turned. "Miriamele. It is a pleasure to see you."

"You like to come here, don't you?"

"I suppose I do." He nodded slowly. "It is a place to
think. I worry too much about Vorzheva—about our child
and what kind of a world it will live in—to feel very
comfortable most places."

"And you miss Deomoth."

Josua turned his gaze back to the cloud-strewn sky
again. "I miss him, yes. But more importantly, I want to
make his sacrifice worthwhile. If our defeat of Fengbald
means something, then it will be easier for me to live
with his death." The prince sighed. "He was still young,
compared to me—he had not seen thirty summers."

Miriamele watched her uncle in silence for a long
while before speaking. "I need to ask you a favor, Josua."

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER                           703

He extended his hand, indicating one of the time-worn
benches. "Please. Ask me whatever you wish."

She took a deep breath. "When you ... when we come
to the Hayholt, I want to speak to my father."

Josua tilted his head, raising his eyebrows so that his
high, smooth forehead creased. "What do you mean,
Miriamele?"

"There will be a time before any final siege when you
and he will talk," she said hurriedly, as though speaking
words that had been practiced. "There has to be, no mat-
ter how bloody the fighting. He is your brother, and you
will speak to him. I wish to be there."

Josua hesitated. "I am not certain that would be
wise...."

"And," Miriamele continued, determined to have her
say, "I wish to speak to him alone."

"Alone?" The prince shook his head, taken aback.
"Miriamele, such a thing cannot be! If we are able to lay
siege to the Hayholt, your father will be a desperate man.
How could I leave you alone with him—I would be giv-
ing you over as a hostage!"

"That's not important," she said stubbornly. "I must
speak with him. Uncle Josua.'I must!"

He bit back a sharp reply; when he spoke, it was gently.
"And why must you, Miriamele?"

"I cannot tell you. But I must. It could make a
difference—a very great difference!"

"Then you must tell me, my niece. For if you do not,
I can only say no; I cannot allow you alone with your fa-
ther."

Tears glistened in Miriamele's eyes. She angrily wiped
them away. "You don't understand. It's something I can
only talk to him about. And I must! Please, Josua,
please!"

A weary anguish seemed to settle on his features like
the work of long years. "I know you are not frivolous,
Miriamele. But neither do you have the lives of hundreds,
maybe thousands, weighing down your decisions. If you
cannot tell me what you feel is so important—and I be-
lieve that you think it is true—then I certainly cannot let

704

Tad Williams

you risk your life for it, and perhaps the lives of many
others as well."

She stared at him intently. The tears were gone, re-
placed by a cold, dispassionate mask. "Please reconsider,
Josua." She gestured toward Deornoth's cairn. A few
blades of grass were already growing up between the
stones. "Remember your friend, Uncle Josua, and all the
things you wish you had said to him"

He shook his head in frustration. The sunlight showed
that his brown hair was thinning near the top. "By
Aedon's blood, I cannot allow it, Miriamele. Be angry at
me if you must, but surely you can see that I have no
other choice." His own voice grew a little more chill.
"When your father surrenders at last, I will do everything
I can to see that he is not harmed. If it is within my
power, you will have a chance to speak with him. That is
the most I can promise."

"It will be too late then." She rose from the bench and
walked rapidly back across the garden.

Josua watched her go; then, as motionless as if he were
rooted to the ground, he watched a sparrow flutter down
to alight briefly atop the cairn of stones. After a few
bouncing steps and a chain of piping notes, it rose again
and flew away. He let its departure lift his gaze back to
the streaming clouds.

A

"Simon!"

He turned. Sangfugol was hurrying across the damp
grass.

"Simon, may I talk to you?" The harper pulled up,
breathing heavily. His hair was mussed and his clothing
seemed to have been thrown on without a thought for
color or style, which was very unusual; even in the days
of exile, Simon had never seen the musician looking quite
this unkempt.

"Certainly."

"Not here." Sangfugol looked around furtively, al-

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER

705

though there was no one in sight. "Somewhere where we
won't be overheard. Your tent?"

Simon nodded, puzzled. "If you wish."

They walked through the tent city. Several of the resi-
dents waved or called greetings to them as they passed.
The harper seemed almost to flinch each time, as though
every person was a potential source of danger. At last
they reached Simon's tent and found Binabik Just prepar-
ing to go out. As the troll pulled on his fur-lined boots, he
chatted amiably about the missing hom—the hunt had
been afoot for three days, and was still unsuccessful—and
other topics. Sangfugol was quite visibly anxious for him
to leave, a fact which Binabik could not help noticing; he
cut short the conversation, made his farewells, then went
off to join Geloe and the rest.

When the troll was gone, Sangfugol let out a sigh of re-
leased tension and sank to the floor of the tent, unmindful
of the dirt. Simon was beginning to be alarmed. Some-
thing was very wrong indeed.

"What is it?" he asked. "You seem frightened."

The harper leaned close, his voice a conspiratorial
near-whisper. "Binabik says they are still searching for
that hom. Josua seems to wan! it very much."

Simon shrugged. "No one knows if it will do any good.
It's for Camaris. They hope it will bring him back to his
senses somehow."

"That doesn't make sense." The harper shook his head.
"How could a horn do something like that?"

"/ don't know," Simon said impatiently. "What is so
important that you needed to talk about?"

"1 imagine that when they find the thief, the prince will
be very angry."

"I'm sure they'll hang him on the wall of Leavetaking
House," Simon said in irritation, then stopped as he saw
the expression of horror on Sangfugol's face. "What's
wrong? Merciful Aedon, Sangfugol, did you steal it?"

"No, no!" the harper said shrilly. "I didn't, I swear!"

Simon stared at him.

"But," Sangfugol said at last, his voice trembling with
shame, "but I know where it is."

706 Tad Williams

"What?! Where?"

"I have it in my tent." The harper said this in the
doomful voice of a condemned martyr forgiving his exe-
cutioners.

"How could that be? Why is it in your tent? And you
didn't take it?"

"Aedon's mercy, Simon, I swear I didn't. I found it'in
with Towser's things after he died. I ... I loved that old
man, Simon. In my way. I know he was a drunkard, and
that sometimes I talked as though I wanted to knock his
head in. But he was good to me when t was young ...
and, curse it, I miss him."

Despite the sadness of the harper's words, Simon was
losing patience again. "But why did you keep it? Why
didn't you tell anybody?"

"I just wanted something of his, Simon." He was as
ashamed and sorrowful as a wet cat. "I buried my second
lute with him. I thought he wouldn't have minded ... I
thought the horn was his!" He reached out to grab Si-
mon's wrist, thought better, and pulled his hand back.
"Then, by the time I realized what all the fuss and search-
ing was for, I was afraid to admit that I had it. It will
seem like I stole from Towser when he was dead. I would
never do that, Simon!"

Simon's moment of anger faded. The harper seemed
close to tears. "You should have told," he said gently.
"No one would have thought ill of you. Now we had bet-
ter go speak to Josua."

"Oh, no! He'll be furious! No, Simon, why don't I just
give it to you—then you can say that you found it. You'll
be the hero."

Simon considered for a moment. "No," he said at last. "I
don't think that would be a good idea. For one thing, I'd
have to lie to Prince Josua about where 1 found it- What if
I told him I found it somewhere, then it turned out they'd
already looked there. It would seem like / stole it." He
shook his head emphatically. For once, it hadn't been Si-
mon who had made the mooncalf mistake. He was in no
hurry to take this particular blame. "In any case, Sangfugol,

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER 707

it won't be as bad as you think. I'll come with you. Josua's
not like that—you know him."

"He told me once that if I sang 'Woman from Nabban'
again he'd have my head off." Sangfugol, the worst of his
fear past, was dangerously close to sulking.

"And well he should have," Simon replied. "We're all
tired of that song." He stood and extended a hand to the
harper. "Now get up and let's go see the prince. If only
you hadn't waited so long to tell, this would be easier."

Sangfugol shook his head miserably, "It just seemed
easier not to say anything. I kept thinking I could take it
out and leave it somewhere that it would be found, but
then I got frightened that someone would catch me at it,
even if I did it in the middle of the night." He took a deep
breath. "I haven't slept the last two nights for worrying."

"Well, you'll feel better once you've talked to Josua.
Come on, up now."

When they emerged from the tent, the harper stood for
a moment in the sun, then wrinkled his thin nose. He of-
fered a weak smile, as though he scented possible re-
demption in the damp morning air. "Thank you, Simon,"
he said- "You are a good friend."

Simon made a noise of mocking derision, then clapped
the harper on the shoulder. "Let's talk to him now, when
he's just eaten breakfast. I'm always in a better mood
when I've just eaten—maybe it works for princes, too."

^

They all gathered at Leavetaking House after the mid-
day meal. Josua stood solemnly before the altar of stone
on which Thom still lay. Simon could feel the prince's
tension.

The others gathered in the hall talked quietly among
themselves. The conversations seemed strained, but si-
lence in the great room might have been even more
daunting. The sunlight streamed through the doorway, but
did not reach the room's farthest reaches. The place
seemed a kind of chapel, and Simon could not help won-
dering if they would see a miracle. If they could bring

708 Tad Williams

back Camaris' wits, the senses and memories of a man
forty years gone from the world, would it not be a sort of
raising of the dead?

He remembered what Miriamele said and had to re-
press a shiver. Perhaps it was wrong, somehow. Perhaps
Camaris was indeed meant to be left alone.

Josua was turning the dragon's-tooth horn over and
over in his hands, looking distractedly at the inscriptions.
When it had been brought to him, he had not been as an-
gry as Sangfugol had feared, but instead openly puzzled
as to why Towser might have taken the hom and hidden
it away. Josua had even been so generous, once his initial
flash of annoyance had passed, as to invite Sangfugol to
stay and witness whatever might happen. But the harper,
reprieved, wanted nothing more to do with the hom or the
doings of princes; he had returned to his bed to get some
much-needed rest.

Now there was a stir among the dozen or so gathered
in the hall as Isgrimnur entered leading Camaris. The old
man, dressed in formal shirt and hose like a child who
had been readied for church, stepped inside and looked
around squinting, as if trying to see the nature of the trap
into which he was being led. If did seem almost as though
he had been brought to answer for some criminal act:

those who waited in the hall stared at his face as though
memorizing it. Camaris looked more than a little fright-
ened.

Miriamele had said that the old man had been door
warden and man-of-all-work at a hostel in Kwanitupul,
and not particularly well treated there, Simon remem-
bered; perhaps he thought he was to be punished for
something. Certainly, from his nervous, sidelong glances,
Camaris looked as though he would rather be anywhere
than this place.

"Here, Sir Camaris." Josua lifted Thorn from the
altar—by the ease with which he hefted it, it must have
seemed light as a twig; remembering the sword's chang-
ing character, Simon wondered what this meant. He had
thought once that the sword had wishes of its own, that it
cooperated only when going where and doing what it de-

TO  GREEN   ANGEL TOWER

sired. Was this its goal, now almost in reach? To return to
its former master?

Prince Josua presented the blade to Camaris hilt first,
but the old man would not take it. "Please, Sir
Camaris—it is Thorn. It was yours, and still is."

The old man's expression became even more desperate.
He stepped back, half-raising his hands as though to fend
off an attack. Isgrimnur took his elbow and steadied him.

"All is well," the duke rumbled. "It's yours, Camaris."

"Sludig." Josua called. "Do you have the sword belt?"

The Rimmersman stepped forward, carrying a belt from
which depended a heavy sheath of black leather studded
with silver. With his master Isgrimnur's help, he strapped
it around Camaris' waist. The old man did not resist. In
fact, Simon thought, he might as well have been turned to
stone. When they were finished, Josua carefully slid
Thorn into the scabbard, so that its hilt came to rest in the
space between Camaris' elbow and his loose white shirt.

"Now the hom, please," said Josua. Freosel, who had
been holding it while the prince carried the blade, handed
him the ancient horn. Josua slipped the baldric over
Camaris' head so that the horn hung beside his right
hand, then stepped back. The long-bladed sword seemed
made to fit its tall owner. A shaft of sunlight from the
doorway glinted in the knight's white hair. There was an
unquestionable Tightness to it; everyone in the room
could see it. Everyone except the old man himself.

"He's not doing anything," Sludig said quietly to
Isgrimnur. Simon again had the impression of attending a
religious service—but now it felt as though the sexton
had neglected to put out the reliquary, or the priest had
forgotten part of the mansa. Everyone was caught up in
the embarrassing pause-

"Perhaps if we are reading the poem?" Binabik sug-
gested.

"Yes." Josua nodded. "Please read it."

Binabik instead pushed Tiamak forward. The
Wrannaman held up the parchment in a trembling hand
and, in an equally unsteady voice, read Nisses* poem.

710                 Tad Williams
"... When Blayde, Call, and Man,"

he finished in firmer tones—he had gained courage
with each line,

"Come to Prince's right Hande
Then the Prisoned shall once more go Free ..."  .

Tiamak stopped and looked up. Camaris stared back at
him, offering a faintly wounded look to the companion of
many weeks who was now doing this inexplicable thing
to him. The old knight might have been a dog expected to
perform some degrading trick for a previously kind mas-
ter.

Nothing had changed. A shock of disappointment went

through the room.

"We have perhaps been making some mistake,"
Binabik said slowly. "We shall have to be at studying it
further."

"No." Josua's voice was harsh. "I don't believe that."
He stepped up to Camaris and lifted the horn to the level
of the old man's eyes. "Don't you recognize this? This is
Cellian! Its call used to strike fear into the hearts of my
father's enemies! Sound it, Camaris!" He moved it to-
ward the old man's lips. "We need you to come back!"

With a hunted look, a look almost of terror, Camaris
pushed Josua away. So unexpected was the old man's
strength that the prince stumbled and nearly fell before
Isgrimnur caught him. Sludig snarled and took a step to-
ward Camaris as though he might strike the old knight.

"Leave him be, Sludig!" Josua snapped. "If anyone is
at fault here, it is me. What right do I have to trouble a
simple-minded old man?" Josua bunched his fist and
stared at the stone tiles for a moment. "Perhaps we should
leave him be. He fought his battles—we should fight ours
and leave him to rest."

"He never turned his back on any fight, Josua," said
Isgrimnur. "I knew him, remember. He always did what
was right, what was ... needful. Don't give up so easily."

Josua lifted his gaze to the old man's face. "Very well.

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER

711

Camaris, come with me." He gently took his elbow.
"Come with me," he said again, then turned and led the
unresisting knight toward the door that led to the garden
behind the hall.

Outside the afternoon was growing chill. A light mist
of rain had darkened the ancient walls and stone benches.
The rest of the company gathered in the doorway, uncer-
tain of what the prince meant to do.

Josua led Camaris to the pile of stones that marked
Deornoth's grave. He lifted the old man's hand and
placed it on the caim, then pressed his own down atop the
knight's.

"Sir Camaris," he said slowly. "Please listen to me.
The land that my father tamed, the order that you and
King John built, is being torn to pieces by war and sor-
cery. Everything you worked for in your life is threat-
ened, and if we fail this time, I fear there will be no
rebuilding.

"Beneath these stones my friend is buried. He was a
knight, as you. Sir Deomoth never met you, but the songs
of your life he heard as a child led him to me. 'Make me
a knight, Josua,' he told me on the day I first saw him. l!
wish to serve as Camaris served. I wish to be your tool
and God's, for the betterment of our people and our land.'

"That is what he said, Camaris." Josua laughed ab-
ruptly. "He was a fool—a holy fool. And he found out, of
course, that sometimes the land and people do not seem
worth saving. But he took a vow before God that he
would do what was right and he lived all his days in an
effort to measure up to that pledge."

Josua's voice rose. He had found some wellspring of
feeling within himself; the words came tumbling out,
strong and effortless. "He died defending this place—a
single battle, a single skirmish took his life, yet without
him, the chance of a greater victory would have been lost
long ago. He died as he lived, trying to do what was not
humanly possible, blaming himself when he failed, then
getting up and trying again. He died for this land,
Camaris, the same land that you fought for, the order that
you struggled to create, where the weak could live their

712

Tad miiams

lives in peace, protected from those who would use
strength to force their wishes on others." The prince
leaned close to Camaris' face, catching and holding the
old man's reluctant gaze. "Will his death mean nothing?
For if we do not win this fight, there will be too many
graves for one more to make a difference, and there will
be no one left to mourn for people like Deomoth." '

Josua's fingers tightened on the knight's hand. "Come
back to us, Camaris. Please. Don't let his death be mean-
ingless. Think of the battles of your time, battles I know
you would prefer not to have fought, but did because the
cause was just and fair. Must all that suffering become
meaningless, too? This is our last chance. After us comes
darkness."

The prince abruptly let go of the old man's hand and
turned away, eyes glistening. Simon, watching from the
doorway, felt his own heart catch.

Camaris still stood as if frozen, his fingers splayed atop
Deomoth's cairn. At last he turned and looked down at
himself, then slowly raised the hom and stared at it for a
long time, as though it were something never before seen
on the green earth. He closed his eyes, lifted it carefully
to his lips with shaking hand, and blew.

The horn sounded. Its first thin note grew and strength-
ened, becoming louder and louder until it seemed to
shake the very air, a shout that seemed to have the clash
of steel and the thunder of hooves in it. Camaris, his eyes
squeezed shut, sucked in a deep breath and blew again,
louder this time. The piercing call winded out across the
hillside and reverberated in the valley; the echoes chased
themselves through the air. Then the noise died away.

Simon discovered he had his hands over his ears. Many
others in the company had done the same.

Camaris was staring at the hom again. He lifted up his
face to those who watched him. Something had changed.
His eyes had become deeper somehow, sadder: there was
a glint of awareness that had not been there before. His
mouth worked, striving for speech, but no sound came out
except a rasping hiss. Camaris looked down at the hilt of
Thorn. With slow and deliberate movements, he drew it

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

713

from the scabbard and held it up before him, a line of
glinting black that seemed to slice right through the light
of the failing afternoon. Tiny drops of misty rain gathered
on the blade.

"/.. . should have known .. . that my .. . torment was
not yet finished, my guilt not forgiven." His voice was
painfully dry and rough, his speech strangely formal.
"Oh, my God, my loving and terrible God, I am humble
before You. I shall serve out my punishment."

The old man fell to his knees before the astonished
company. For a long time, he said nothing, but seemed to
be praying. Tears ran down his cheeks, merging with the
raindrops to make his face shine in the slanting sunlight.
Finally, Camaris clambered to his feet and allowed
Isgrimnur and Josua to lead him away.

Simon felt something tugging at his arm. He looked
down. Binabik's small fingers had caught his sleeve. The
troll's eyes were bright. "Do you know, Simon, it is what
we had all forgotten. Sir Deomoth's men, the soldiers of
Naghmund, do you know what they were calling him?
The prince's right hand.' And even Josua did not remem-
ber, I am thinking. Luck ... or something else, friend Si-
mon." The little man squeezed" Simon's arm again, then
hurried after the prince,

Overwhelmed, Simon turned, trying to catch a last
glimpse of Camaris. Miriamele was standing near the
doorway. She caught Simon's eyes and gave him an angry
look that seemed to say: you are to blame for this, too.

She turned and followed Camaris and the others back
into Leavetaking House, leaving Simon alone in the rainy
garden,

24

A Sky Fuff of Beasts

A

Four StrOTlfl men, sweating despite the cold night
breeze and panting from the exertion of heaving the cov-
ered litter up the narrow stairway, carefully lifted out the
chair containing the litter's passenger and carried it to the
middle of the rooftop garden. The man in the chair was so
swaddled in furs and robes as to be practically unrecog-
nizable. but the tall, elegantly dressed woman immedi-
ately rose from her own seat and came forward with a
glad cry.

"Count Streawe!" said the dowager duchess. "I'm so
glad you could come. And on such a chill evening."

"Nessalanta, my dear. Only an invitation from you
would bring me out in such ghastly weather." The count
took her gloved hand in his own and drew it to his lips.
"Forgive me for being so discourteous as to remain

seated."

"Nonsense." Nessalanta snapped her fingers at the
count's bearers and indicated they should bring his chair
closer to hers. She seated herself again. "Although I think
it is growing a little warmer. Nevertheless, you are a
jewel, a splendid jewel for coming tonight."

"The pleasure of your company, dear lady." Streawe
coughed into his kerchief.

"It will be worth your while, I promise." She gestured
floridly at the star-sprinkled sky as though she herself had
commanded it spread before them. "Look at this' You
will be so glad you came. Xannasavin is a brilliant man."

"My lady is too kind," said a voice from the stairwell.

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER           715

Count Streawe, somewhat limited in his mobility, craned
his neck awkwardly to see the speaker.

The man who emerged from the entranceway onto the
rooftop garden was tall and thin, with long fingers
clasped as though in prayer. He wore a great curling
beard of gray-shot black. His robes, too, were dark, and
bespotted with Nabbanai star symbols. He moved be-
tween the rows of potted trees and shrubs with a certain
storklike grace, then bent his long legs to kneel before the
dowager duchess. "My lady, I received your summons
with great pleasure. It is always a joy to serve you." He
turned to Streawe. 'The Duchess Nessalanta would have
been a splendid astrologer, had she not her greater duties
to Nabban. She is a woman of great insight."

Beneath his hood, Perdruin's count smiled. "This is
known to all."

Something in Streawe's voice made the duchess hesi-
tate for a moment before she spoke. "Xannasavin is too
kind. I have studied a few rudiments only." She crossed
her hands demurely before her breast.

"Ah, but could I have had you for an apprentice,"
Xannasavin said, "the mysteries that we might have
plumbed. Duchess Nessalanta...." His voice was deep
and impressive. "Does my lady wish me to start?"

Nessalanta, who had been watching his lips move,
shook herself as though suddenly coming awake. "Ah.
No, Xannasavin, not yet. We must wait for my eldest
son."

Streawe looked at her with real interest. "I did not
know that Benigaris was a follower of the mysteries of
the stars."

"He is interested," Nessalanta said carefully. "He
is ..." She looked up. "Ah, he is here!"

Benigaris strode onto the rooftop. Two guards, their
surcoats kingfisher-blazed, followed a few paces behind
him. The reigning duke of Nabban was going a little to
fat around the middle, but was still a tall, broad-
shouldered man. His mustache was so luxuriant as to hide
his mouth almost entirely.

"Mother," he said curtly as he reached the small gath-

7i6

Tad Williams

ering. He took her gloved hand and nodded, then turned
to the count. "Streawe. I missed you at dinner last night."

The count lifted his kerchief to his lips and coughed.
"My apologies, good Benigaris. My health, you know.
Sometimes it is just too difficult for me to leave my
room, even for hospitality as famed as that of the
Sancellan Mahistrevis."

Benigaris grunted. "Well, then you probably shouldn't
be out here on this freezing roof." He turned to
Nessalanta, "What are we doing here. Mother?"

The dowager duchess put on a look of girlish hurt.
"Why, you know perfectly well what we are doing here.
This is a very favorable night to read the stars, and
Xannasavin is going to tell us what the next year will
bring,"

"If you so desire. Highness." Xannasavin bowed to the

duke.

"I can tell you what the next year will bring,"
Benigaris growled. "Trouble and more trouble. Every-
where I turn there are problems." He looked to Streawe.
"You know how it is. They want bread, the peasants do,
but if I give it to them they just want more. I tried to
bring in some of those swamp men to help work the grain
fields—I have had to expend a lot of soldiers in those
border skirmishes with the Thrithings savages and now
all the barons are screaming about having their peasants
levied and their Fields fallow—but the damnable little
brown men won't come! What am I to do, send troops
into that cursed swamp? I'm better off without them."

"How well do I know the burdens of leadership,"
Streawe said sympathetically. "You have been doing a he-
roic job in difficult times, I am told."

Benigaris jerked his head in acknowledgment. "And
then those damned, damned, thrice-damned Fire Dancers,
setting themselves on fire and frightening the common
folk." His expression turned dark. "I should never have
trusted Pryrates...."

"I'm sorry, Benigaris," said Streawe. "I didn't hear
you—my old ears, you know. Pryrates... ?"

The Duke of Nabban looked at the count. His eyes nar-

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

717

rowed. "Never mind. Anyway, it's been a filthy year, and
I doubt the next will be any better." A sour smile moved
his mustache. "Unless 1 convince some of the trouble-
makers here in Nabban to become Fire Dancers. There
are more than a few that I think would look very good in
flames."

Streawe laughed, then broke into a fit of dry coughing-
"Very good, Benigaris, very good."

"Enough of this," Nessalanta said pettishly. "I think
you are wrong, Benigaris—it should be a splendid year.
Besides, there is no need to speculate. Xannasavin will
tell you everything you need to know."

"I am but a humble observer of the celestial patterns,
Duchess," the astrologer said. "But I will do my
best...."

"And if you can't come up with something better than
the year I've just gone through," Benigaris muttered, "I
may just toss you off the roof."

"Benigaris!" Nessalanta's voice, which had so far been
wheedling and childlike, turned suddenly sharp as the
crack of a drover's whip. "You will not speak that way
before me! You will not threaten Xannasavin! Do you un-
derstand'?"

Benigaris almost imperceptibly flinched. "It was only a
jest. Aedon's Holy Blood, Mother, don't take on so," He
walked to the half-canopied chair with the ducal crest and
sat down heavily. "Go on, man," he grunted, waving at
Xannasavin. 'Tell us what wonders the stars hold."

The astrologer pulled a sheaf of scrolls from his volu-
minous robe, brandishing them with a certain drama. "As
the duchess mentioned," he began, his voice smooth and
practiced, "tonight is an excellent night for divination.
Not only are the stars in a particularly favorable configu-
ration, but the sky itself is clear of storms and other hin-
drances." He smiled at Duke Benigaris. "An auspicious
sign in and of itself."

"Continue," said the duke-

Xannasavin lifted a furled scroll and pointed up at the
wheel of stars. "As you can see, Yuvenis' Throne is di-
rectly overhead. The Throne is, of course, much tied to

7i8 Tad Williams

the mling of Nabban, and has been since the old heathen
days. When the lesser lights are moving through its as-
pect, the heirs of the Imperium do well to take notice."
He paused for a moment to let the import of this sink in.
'Tonight you can see that the Throne is upright, and that
on its topmost edge, the Serpent and Mixis the Wolf are
particularly bright." He swung around and pointed to an-
other part of the sky. "The Falcon, there, and the Winged
Beetle are now visible in the southern sky. The Beetle al-
ways brings change."

"It is like one of the old Imperators' private menager-
ies," Benigaris said impatiently. "Beasts, beasts, beasts.
What does it all mean?"

"It means, my lord, that there are great times ahead for
the Benidrivine House."

"I knew it," Nessalanta purred. "I knew it."

"What tells you that?" Benigaris asked, squinting at the

sky.

"I could not do justice to your majesties by trying to
make an explanation that was too brief," the astrologer
said smoothly. "Suffice it to say that the stars, which have
long spoken of hesitation, of unsureness and doubt, now
proclaim that a time of change is coming. Great change."

"But that could be anything," Benigaris grumbled.
"That could mean the whole city burned down."

"Ah, but that is only because you have not heard all
that I have to say. There are two other factors, factors
most important. One is me Kingfisher itself—there, do
you see it?" Xannasavin gestured toward a point in the
eastern sky. "It is far brighter than I have ever seen it—
and at this time of year it is generally quite hard to see.
Your family's fortunes have long risen and fallen with the
waxing and waning of the Kingfisher's light, and it has
not been so gloriously illuminated before in my lifetime.
Something of great moment is about to happen to the
Benidrivine House, my lord. Your house."

"And the other?" Benigaris appeared to be growing in-
terested. "The other thing you mentioned?"

"Ah." The astrologer unrolled one of his scrolls and
examined it. "That is something that you cannot see at

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWfcR

this moment. There will be a reappearance soon of the
Conqueror Star."

"The bearded star that we saw last year and the year
before?" It was Streawe who spoke, his voice eager. "The
great red thing?"

"That is the one."

"But when it came, it frightened the common folk out
of their shallow wits!" Benigaris said. "I think that is
what started all this doom-saying nonsense in the first
place'"

Xannasavin nodded. "The celestial signs are often mis-
read, Duke Benigaris. The Conqueror Star will return, but
it is not a precursor of disaster, merely of change.
Throughout history it has come to herald a new order ap-
pearing out of conflict and chaos. It trumpeted the end of
the Imperium, and shone over the final days of Khand."

"And this is good'?" Benigaris shouted. "You are say-
ing that something which speaks of the downfall of an
empire should make me happy'?" He seemed ready to
leap from his chair and manhandle the astrologer.

"But my lord, remember the Kingfisher!" Xannasavin
said hurriedly. "How could these changes be to your dis-
may when the Kingfisher is burning so brightly? No, my
lord, pardon your humble servant for seeming to instruct
you in any way, but can you think of no situation in
which a great empire might fall, yet the fortunes of the
Benidrivine House might improve?"

Benigaris sat back swiftly, as though repelled by a
blow. He stared at his hands. "I will talk to you of this
later," he said at last. "Leave us now for a while."

Xannasavin bowed. "As you wish, my lord." He bowed
again, this time in the direction of Streawe. "A pleasure
to meet you at last, Count. I have been honored."

The count absently bobbed his head, as lost in thought
as Benigaris.

Xannasavin kissed Nessalanta's hand, swept the roof-
top with a low bow, then stowed his scrolls once more
and walked to the stairwell. His footsteps gradually dwin-
dled down into echoing darkness.

720 Tad Williams

"Do you see?" Nessalanta asked. "Do you see why I
value him so? He is a brilliant man."

Streawe nodded. "He is most imposing. And you have
found him reliable?"

"Absolutely. He predicted my poor husband's death."
Her face assumed a look of profound sorrow. "But
Leobardis would not listen, despite all my warnings.'I
told him if he set foot on Erkynlandish soil, I would never
see him again. He told me it was nonsense."

Benigaris looked at his mother sharply. "Xannasavin
told you Father would die?"

"He did. If only your father had listened."

Count Streawe cleared his throat. "Well, I had hoped to
save these matters for a different time, Benigaris, but
hearing what your astrologer had to say—hearing of the
splendid future he sees for you—I think perhaps I should
share my thoughts with you now."

Benigaris turned from his dissatisfied contemplation of
his mother to the count. "What are you talking about?"

"Certain things I have learned." The old man looked
around. "Ah, forgive me, Benigaris, but would it be an
imposition to ask your guards to step back out of hear-
ing?" He made a crabbed gesture toward the two armored
men, who had stood motionless and silent as stone
throughout the proceedings. Benigaris grunted and ges-
tured them back.

"So?"

"I have, as you know, many sources of information,"
the count began. "I hear many things that even others
more powerful than myself are not able to discover. Re-
cently I have heard some things that you might wish to
know. About Elias and his war with Josua. About ...
other things." He paused and looked to the duke expect-
antly-

Nessalanta, too, was sitting forward. "Go on, Streawe.
You know how much we value your counsel."

"Yes," Benigaris said, "go on. I will be very interested
to discover what you have heard."

The count smiled, a vulpine grin that showed his still-


TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER 721

bright teeth. "Ah, yes," he said. "You will be inter-
ested. ..."

«

Eolair did not recognize the Sitha who stood in the
doorway of the Hall of Carvings. He was dressed con-
servatively, at least in Sithi terms, in shirt and breeches of
a pale creamy cloth that shimmered like silk. His hair was
nut-brown—the closest to a human shade the count had
yet seen—and had been pulled into a knot on top of his
head.

"Likimeya and Jiriki say that you must come to them."
The stranger's Hemystiri was as awkward and as archaic
as that of the dwarrows. "Must you wait for a moment, or
is it that you can come now? It is good that you come
now."

Eolair heard Craobhan take a breath as if to protest the
summons, but the count laid a hand on his arm. It was
only this immortal's imperfect speech that made it sound
peremptory—Eolair guessed that the Sithi would wait for
him for days without impatience.

"One of your people, a healer, is with the king's
; daughter—with Maegwin," he told the messenger. "I
must talk to her. Then I will come."

The Sitha, face impassive, bobbed his head swiftly in
• the manner of a cormorant seizing a fish from a river. "I
will tell to them." He turned and left the room, his booted
feet soundless on the wooden floors.

"Are they the masters here now?" Craobhan asked irri-
tatedly. "Should we step to their measures?"

Eolair shook his head. "That is not their way, old
friend. Jiriki and his mother simply wish to speak to me,
I am sure- Not all of them speak our tongue as well as
those two."

"I still do not like it. We had to live with Skali's boot
on our necks long enough—when are the Hernystiri going
to take their rightful place in their own land again?"

"Things are changing," Eolair said mildly. "But we
have always survived. Five centuries ago, Fingil's

722 Tad Williams

Rimmersmen drove us into the hilis and the sea-cliffs. We
came back. Skali*s men are on the run now, so we have
outlasted them, too. The weight of the Sithi is a far easier
burden, don't you think?"

The old man stared at him, eyes wrinkling in a suspi-
cious squint. At last, he smiled. "Ah, my good count, you
should have been a priest or a general. You take the long
view."

"As you do, Craobhan. Else you would not be here to-
day to complain."

Before the old man could respond, another Sitha ap-
peared in the doorway, this one a gray-haired woman
dressed in green with a cloak of cloudy silver. Despite the
color of her hair, she looked no older than the just-
departed messenger.

"Kira'athu," the count said, rising. His voice lost its
lightness. "Can you help her?"

The Sitha stared at him for a moment, then shook her
head; the gesture seemed curiously unnatural, as though
she had learned it from a book. "There is nothing wrong
with her body. But her spirit is somehow hidden from me,
gone deep inside, like a mouse when the owl's shadow is
upon the night-fields."

"What does that mean?" Eolair struggled to keep impa-
tience out of his words.

"Frightened. She is frightened. She is like a child who
has seen its parents killed."

"She has seen much death. She has buried her father
and her brother."

The Sitha-woman waved her fingers slowly, a gesture
that Eolair could not translate. "It is not that. Anyone,
Zida'ya or Sudhoda'ya—Dawn Child or mortal—who has
lived enough years understands death. It is horrible, but it
is understandable. But a child does not understand it. And
something has come to the woman Maegwin in this
way—something that is beyond her understanding. It has
frightened her spirit."

"Will she get better? Is there anything you can do for
her?"

"I can do nothing more. Her body is sound. Where the

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

723

spirit goes, though, is another matter. I must think on this.
Perhaps there is an answer I cannot see at this time."

It was difficult to read Kira'athu's high-boned, feline
face, but Eolair did not think she sounded very hopeful.
The count balled his fists and held them hard against his
thighs. "And is there anything / can do?"

Something very much like pity showed in the Sitha's
eyes. "If she has hidden her spirit deep enough, only the
woman Maegwin can lead herself back. You cannot do it
for her." She paused as though searching for words of sol-
ace. "Be kind. That is something." She turned and glided
from the hall.

After a long silence. Old Craobhan spoke. "Maegwin's
mad, Eolair."

The count held up his hand. "Don't."

"You can't change it by not listening. She grew worse
while you were gone. I told you where we found her—up
on Bradach Tor, raving and singing. She'd been sitting
unprotected in the wind and snow for Mircha only knows
how long. Said she'd seen the gods."

"Perhaps she did see them," Eolair said bitterly. "After
all / have seen in this cursed twelve-month, who am I to
doubt her? Perhaps it was too much for her. . . ." He
stood, rubbing his wet palms on his breeches. "I will go
now and meet Jiriki."

Craobhan nodded. His eyes were moist, but his mouth
was set in a hard line. "Don't ruin yourself, Eotair. Don't
give in. We need you even more than she does."

"When Isorn and the others come back," the count
said, "tell them where I've gone. Ask them to wait up for
me, if they would be so good—I don't think I will be too
long with the Sithi." He looked out at the sky deepening
toward twilight. "I want to talk to Isom and Ule tonight."
He patted the old man's shoulder before walking out of
the Halt of Carvings.

"Eolair."

He turned in the outer doorway to find Maegwin stand-
ing in the entrance hallway behind him. "My lady. How
are you feeling?"

724

Tad Williams

"Well," she said lightly, but her eyes belied her.
"Where are you going?"

"I am going to see ..." He caught himself. He had al-
most said "the gods." Was madness contagious? "I am
going to speak with Jiriki and his mother."

"I do not know them," she said. "But I would like to
go with you in any case."

"Go with me?" Somehow it seemed strange.

"Yes, Count Eolair. I would like to go with you. Is that
so dreadful? We are not such dire enemies, surely?" There
was a hollowness to her words, like a jest made on a gib-
bet's top step.

"Of course you may, my lady," he said hurriedly.
"Maegwin. Of course."

Although Eolair could not discern any new additions to
the Sithi camp that stretched across the broad expanse of
Hem's Hill, still it seemed more intricate than it had just
a few days before, more connected to the land. It looked
as though, instead of the product of a few days' work, it
had stood here since the hill was young. There was a
quality of peace and soft, natural movement: the multicol-
ored tent houses shifted and swayed like plants in an
eddying stream. The count felt a moment of irritation, an
echo of Craobhan's dissatisfaction. What right did the
Sithi have to make themselves so comfortable here?
Whose land was this, after all?

A moment later, he caught himself. It was just the na-
ture of the Fair Ones- Despite their great cities, mere bat-
haunted ruins now if Mezutu'a was any indication, they
were people who were not rooted to a place. From the
way Jiriki had talked about the Garden, their primordial
home, it seemed clear that despite their eon-long tenancy
in Osten Ard they still felt themselves to be little more
than travelers in this land. They lived in their own heads,
in their songs and memories. Hem's Hill was only an-
other place.

Maegwin walked silently beside him, her features set
as though she hid troubled thoughts. He remembered a
time many years before when she had brought him to

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER

725

watch one of her beloved pigs give birth. Something had
gone wrong, and near the end of the birthing the sow had
begun to squeal in pain. By the time the two dead piglets
had been removed, one still wrapped in the bloody umbil-
icus that had strangled it, the sow in her panic had rolled
on one of her other newboms.

All through that blood-spattered nightmare, Maegwin
had worn a look much like the one she bore now. Only
when the sow had been saved and the rest of the litter
were nursing had she allowed herself to break down and
cry. Remembering, Eolair realized suddenly that it had
been the last time she had let him hold her. Even as he
had sorrowed for her, trying to understand her grief over
the deaths of what to him were only animals, he had felt
her in his arms, her breasts against him, and had realized
that she was a woman now, for all her youth. It had been
a strange feeling.

"Eolair?" There was just a hint of a tremor in
Maegwin's voice. "May I ask you a question?"

"Certainly, Lady." He could not lose the memory of
himself as he had held her, blood on their hands and
clothes as they kneeled in the straw. He had not felt half
so helpless then as he did now.-

"How ... how did you die?"

At first he thought he had misheard her. "I am sorry,
Maegwin. How did I what?"

"How did you die? I am ashamed I have not asked you
before. Was it the sort of death you deserved, a noble
one? Oh, I hope it was not painful. I don't think I could
bear that." She looked at him quickly, then broke into a
shaky smile. "But of course that doesn't matter, for here
you are! It is all behind us."

"How did I die?" The unreality of it struck him like a
blow. He pulled at her arm and stopped. They were stand-
ing in an open stretch of grass with Likimeya's enclosure
only a stone's throw away before them. "Maegwin, I am
not dead. Feel me!" He extended his hand and took her
cool fingers. "I am alive! So are you'"

"I was struck down just as the gods came," she said
dreamily. "I think it was Skali—at least his ax being

726 Tad Williams

raised is the last thing I remember before I woke up
here." She laughed shakily. "That's funny. Can you wake
up in Heaven? Sometimes, since I have been here, it feels
as though I sleep for a little while."

"Maegwin." He squeezed her hand. "Listen to me. We
are not dead." Eolair felt himself about to weep and
shook his head angrily. "You are still in Hernystir, ,the
place where you were bom."

Maegwin looked at him with a curious gleam in her
eyes. For a moment the count thought he might have fi-
nally reached her. "Do you know, Eolair," she said
slowly, "when I was alive, I was always frightened.
Frightened that I would lose the things I cared about. I
was even frightened to talk to you, the closest friend I
ever had." She shook her head. Her hair streamed in the
breeze moving across the hill, exposing her long pale
neck. "I could not even tell you that 1 loved you, Eolair—
loved you until it burned inside me. I was frightened that
if I told you, you would push me away and I would not
even have your friendship."

Eolair's heart felt as though it would crack right
through, like a flawed stone struck by a hammer.
"Maegwin, I ... I didn't know." Did he love her, too?
Would it help her to tell her he did, whether it was true
or not? "I was ... I was blind," he stammered. "I didn't
know."

She smiled sadly. "It is no matter now," she said with
terrible certainty. "It's too late to worry about such
things." She clutched his hand and led him forward once
more.

He took me last few steps toward the blue and purple
of Likimeya's compound like a man arrow-shot in the
dark, so surprised that he walks on without realizing he
has been murdered.

Jiriki and his mother were in quiet but intense conver-
sation when Eolair and Maegwin stepped through the ring
of cloth. Likimeya still wore her armor; her son was at-
tired in softer clothing.

Jiriki looked up. "Count Eolair. We are happy you

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

727

could come. We have things to show you and tell you."
His eyes lit on Eolair's companion. "Lady Maegwin.
Welcome."

Eolair felt Maegwin tense, but she made a curtsy. "My
Lord," she said. The count could not help wondering what
she saw. If Jiriki was the sky-god Brynioch, what did she
make of his mother? What did she see when she looked
at the rippling cloth all around them, the fruit trees and
the dying afternoon light, at the alien faces of the other
Sithi?

"Please sit." It was strange how musical Likimeya's
voice was, for all its roughness. "Will you have refresh-
ment?"

"Not for me, thank you." Eolair turned to Maegwin.
She shook her head, but her eyes were distant, as though
she were somehow pulling away from what lay before
her.

"Then let us not wait," Likimeya said. "We have some-
thing to show you." She looked over to the brown-haired
messenger who had earlier visited the Taig. This one
stepped forward, lowering the sack that he held in his
hands. With a deft movement, he unlaced the drawstring
and turned it upside-down. Something dark rolled out
onto the grass.

"Tears of Rhynn!" Eolair choked.

Skali's head lay before him, mouth open, eyes wide.
The full yellow beard was now almost entirely crimson,
stained by the gore that had wicked up from his severed
neck.

"There is your enemy. Count Eolair," said Likimeya. A
cat who had killed a bird might drop it at her master's
feet with just such calm satisfaction. "He and a few dozen
of his men turned at last, in the hills east of Grianspog."

'Take it away, please." Eolair felt his gorge rising. "I
did not need to see him like this." For a moment he
looked worriedly to Maegwin, but she was not even
watching: her pale face was turned toward the darkening
sky beyond the walls of the compound.

Unlike her flame-red hair, Likimeya's eyebrows were
white, two streaks like narrow scars above her eyes. She

728 Tad Williams

raised one of them in a curiously human expression of
mocking disbelief. "Your Prince Sinnach displayed his
defeated enemies this way."

'That was five hundred years past!" Eolair recovered a
little of his usual calm. "I am sorry. Mistress, but we mor-
tals change in such a length of time. Our ancestors were
perhaps fiercer than we are." He swallowed. "I have seen
much death, but this was a surprise."

"We meant no offense." Likimeya gave Jiriki what ap-
peared to be a significant glance. "We thought it would
gladden your heart to see what came to the one who con-
quered and enslaved your people."

Eolair took a breath. "I understand. And I mean no of-
fense either. We are grateful for your help. Grateful past
telling." He could not help looking again at the blood-
matted thing on the grass.

The messenger stooped and plucked Skali's head up by
the hair and dropped it back into the sack. Eolair had to
restrain an urge to ask what had happened to the rest of
Sharp-nose, Probably left for the vultures somewhere in
those cold eastern hills.

"That is good," replied Likimeya. "Because we wish
your aid."

Eolair steadied himself. "What can we do?"

Jiriki turned to him. His face was blandly indifferent,
even more so than usual. Had he disapproved somehow of
his mother's gesture? Eolair pushed the thought aside. To
try to understand the Sithi was to invite perplexity border-
ing on madness.

"Now that Skali is dead and the last of his troops scat-
tered across the land, our purpose here is fulfilled," Jiriki
said. "But we have only set our feet to the path. Now the
journey begins in earnest."

As he spoke his mother reached behind her and drew
out a jar, a squat but oddly graceful object glazed in dark
blue. She reached two fingers into it and then withdrew
them. The tips were stained gray-black.

"We told you that we cannot stop here," Jiriki contin-
ued. "We must go on to Ujin e-d'a Sikhunae—the place
you call Naglimund."

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER                           729

Slowly, as if performing a ritual, Likimeya began to
daub her face. She began by drawing dark lines down her
cheeks and around her eyes.

"And . . . and what can the Hernystiri do?" Eolair
asked. He was having trouble tearing his gaze away from
Jiriki's mother.

The Sitha lowered his head for a moment, then raised
it and held the count's eye, compelling him to pay atten-
tion. "By the blood that our two peoples have spilled for
each other, I ask you to send a troop of your countrymen
to join us."

"To join you?" Eolair thought of the shining, trumpet-
ing charge of the Sithi. "What help could we possibly
be?"

Jiriki smiled. "You underestimate yourselves—and you
overestimate us. It is very important that we take the cas-
tle that once belonged to Josua, but it will be a fight like
no other. Who knows what surprising part mortals may
play when the Gardenbom fight? And there are things
you can do that we cannot. We are few now. We need
your folk, Eolair. We need you."

Likimeya had drawn a mask around her eyes, on her
forehead and cheeks, so that her amber gaze seemed to
flame in the darkness like jewels in a rock crevice. She
drew three lines down from her bottom lip to her chin.

"I cannot compel my people, Jiriki," Eolair told him.
"Especially after all that has happened to them. But if I
go, I think that others would join me." He considered the
needs of honor and duty. Revenge against Skali had been
taken from him, but it seemed the Rimmersman had only
been a catspaw for Elias—and for an even more frighten-
ing enemy. Hemystir was free, but the war was by no
means ended. The count also found a certain seductive-
ness in the idea of something as straightforward as battle.
The tangle of reoccupying Hernysadharc and coping with
Maegwin's madness had already begun to overwhelm
him.

The sky overhead was dark blue, the color of
Likimeya's pot. Some of the Sithi produced globes of
light which they set on wooden stands around the encio-

730

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sure; the branches of the fruit trees, lit from below,
burned golden.

"I will come with you to Naglimund, Jiriki," he said at
last. Craobhan could watch over the folk of
Hernysadharc, he decided, and watch over Maegwin and
Lluth's wife Inahwen as well. Craobhan would continue
the work of rebuilding the land—it was a task that would
suit the old man perfectly. "I will bring as many of my
fighting men as will come."

"Thank you. Count Eolair. The world is changing, but
some things are always true. The hearts of the Hemystiri
are constant."

Likimeya put down her pot, wiped her fingers on her
boots—they left a broad smear—and stood up. By her
face-painting, she had changed herself into something
even more alien, more unsettling.

"Then it is agreed," she said. "When the third morning
from tonight comes, we will ride to Ujin e-d'a Sikhunae."
Her eyes seemed to spark in the light of the crystal
globes.

Eolair could not brave her gaze for long, but neither
could he still his curiosity. "Your pardon. Mistress," he
said. "I hope I am not being impolite. May I ask what you
have put on your face?"

"Ashes. Mourning ashes." She made a sound in the
back of her throat, a thin exhalation that could have been
a sigh or a huff of exasperation. "You cannot understand,
mortal men, but I will tell you anyway. We go to war on
the Hikeda'ya."

After a moment's pause, while Eolair tried to puzzle
out what she meant, Jiriki spoke up. His voice was gentle,
mournful. "Sithi and Noms are of a single blood, Count
Eolair. Now we must fight them." He lifted a hand and
made a gesture like a candle flame being extinguished—a
flutter, then stillness. "We must kill members of our own
family."

Maegwin was silent most of the way back. It was only
when the Taig's sloping roofs loomed before them that
she spoke.

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

731

"I am going with you. I will go to see the gods make
war."

He shook his head violently. "You are going to stay
here with Craobhan and the rest."

"No. If you leave me behind, I will follow you." Her
voice was calm and certain. "And in any case, Eolair,
what makes you sound so fearful? I cannot die twice, can
I?" She laughed a little too loudly.

Eolair argued with her in vain. At last, just as he was
on the verge of losing his temper, a thought came to him.

The healer said she must find her own way back. Per-
haps this is part of it?

But the danger. Surely he could not think of letting her
take such a risk. Not that he could stop her from follow-
ing if he left her behind—mad or no, there was no one in
all of Hernysadharc half as stubborn as Lluth's daughter.
Gods, was he cursed? No wonder he almost longed for
the brutal simplicity of battle.

"We will speak of this later," he said. "I am tired,
Maegwin."

"No one should be tired in this place." There was a
subtle note of triumph in her voice- "I worry about you,
Eolair."

A

Simon had picked an open, unshaded spot near
Sesuad'ra's outer wall. The sun was actually shining to-
day, although it was windy enough that both he and
Miriamele wore their cloaks. Still, it was pleasant to have
his hood down and to feel the sun on his neck. "I brought
some wine." Simon produced a skin bag and two cups
from his sack. "Sangfugol said it's good—I think it's
from Perdruin." He laughed nervously. "Why would it be
better from one place than another? Grapes are grapes."

Miriamele smiled. She seemed tired: shadows lay be-
neath her green eyes. "I don't know. Maybe they grow
them differently."

"It doesn't really matter." Simon carefully aimed a
stream from the winesack into first one cup, then the

732

Tad Williams

other. "I'm still not sure I even like wine—Rachel would
never let me drink it. 'The Devil's blood,' she called it."

"The Mistress of Chambermaids?" Miriamele made a
face. "She was a nasty woman."

Simon handed her a cup. "I used to think so. She cer-
tainly had a temper. But she tried to do her best for me,
I suppose. I made it hard on her." He lifted the wine to his
lips, letting the sourness run over his tongue. "I wonder
where she is now? Still at the Hayholt? I hope she's well-
1 hope she hasn't been hurt." He grinned—to think of
having such feelings for the Dragon!—then looked up
suddenly. "Oh, no. I've already drunk some. Shouldn't
we say something—have a toast?"

Miriamele lifted her cup solemnly. "To your birth-day,

Simon."

"And to yours, Princess Miriamele."

They sat and drank for a while in silence. The wind
pressed the grass sideways, flattening it in changing pat-
terns as though some great invisible beast rolled in rest-
less sleep. "The Raed is beginning tomorrow," he said.
"But I think that Josua has already decided what he wants

to do."

"He will go to Nabban." There was quiet bitterness in

her voice.

"What's wrong with that?" Simon motioned for her
cup, which was empty. "It's a start."

"It's the wrong start." She stared at his hand as she
took the cup. The scrutiny made him uneasy. "I'm sorry,
Simon. I am just unhappy with things. With tots of

things."

"I will listen if you want to talk. I've gotten to be a
good listener, Princess."

"Don't call me 'Princess'!" When she spoke again, her
tone was softer. "Please, Simon, not you, too. We were
friends once, when you didn't know who I was. I need
that now."

"Certainly ... Miriamele." He took a breath. "Aren't
we friends now?"

"That's not what I meant." She sighed. "It's the same
problem as I have with Josua's decision. I don't agree

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER

733

with him. I think we should move directly to Erkynland.
This is not a war like my grandfather fought—it's much
worse, much darker. I am afraid we will be too late if we
try to conquer Nabban first."

"Too late for what?"

"I don't know. I have these feelings, these ideas, but I
have nothing that I can use to prove they are real. That's
bad enough, but because I am a princess—because I am
the High King's daughter—they listen to me anyway.
Then they all try to find a polite way to ignore me. It
would almost be better if they just told me to be quiet!"

"What does that have to do with me?" Simon asked
quietly. Miriamele had closed her eyes, as though she
looked at something inside herself. The red-gold of her
eyelashes, the minute fineness of them, made him feel as
though he were coming apart.

"Even you, Simon, who met me as a serving-girl—no,
a serving-boy'" She laughed, but her eyes remained shut.
"Even you, Simon, when you look at me, you are not just
looking at me. You are seeing my father's name, the cas-
tle I grew up in, the costly dresses. You are looking at a
... a princess." She said the word as though it meant
something terrible and false.

Simon stared at her for a long time, watching her wind-
shifted hair, the downy line of her cheek. He burned to
tell her what he really saw, but knew he could never find
the proper words; it would all come out as a mooncalf
babble. "You are what you are," he said at last. "Isn't it
just as false to try and be something else as it is for others
to pretend they're talking to you when they're only talk-
ing to some ... princess?"

Her eyes opened suddenly. They were so clear, so
searching! He suddenly had an idea of what it must have
been like to stand before her grandfather, Prester John. It
reminded him, too, of what he himself was: a servant's
awkward child, a knight only by virtue of circumstance.
At this moment she seemed closer than she had ever
been, but at the same time the gulf between them also
seemed as wide as the ocean.

734

Tad Williams

Miriamele was staring at him intently. After a few mo-
ments, he looked away, abashed. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be." Her voice was brisk, but it somehow did
not match the fretful expression on her face. "Don't be,
Simon. And let's talk of something else." She turned to
look across the swaying grass of the hilltop. The strange,
fierce moment passed.

They finished the wine and shared bread and cheese.
For a treat, Simon produced a leaf-wrapped package of
sweetmeats that he had bought from one of the peddlers
at New Gadrinsett's small market, little balls made of
honey and roasted grain. The talk turned to other things,
of the places and strange things they had both seen.
Miriamele tried to tell Simon of the Niskie Gan Itai and
her singing, of the way she had used her music to stitch
sky and sea together. In his turn, Simon tried to explain
something of what it had been like to be in Jiriki's house
by the river, and to see the Yasira, the living tent of but-
terflies. He tried to describe gentle, frightening Amerasu,
but faltered. There was still a great deal of pain in that
memory.

"And what about that other Sitha-woman?" Miriamele
asked. "The one who is here. Aditu."

"What do you mean?"

"What do you think of her?" She frowned. "I think she
has no manners."

Simon snorted softly. "She has her own manners, is
more like it. They're not like us, Miriamele."

"Well, then I think little of the Sithi. She dresses and
acts like a tavern harlot."

He had to suppress another smile. Aditu's current style
of dress was almost bogglingly reserved in comparison to
the garb she had worn in Jao e-Tinukai'i- It was true that
she still often exhibited more of her tawny flesh than the
citizens of New Gadrinsett found comfortable, but Aditu
was obviously doing her best not to outrage her mortal
companions. As for her behavior ... "I don't think she's
so bad," he said.

"Well, you wouldn't." Miriamele was definitely cross.
"You moon after her like a puppy."

TO   GREEN   ANGbL   TOWER                           735

"I do not'" he said, stung. "She is my friend."

"That's a nice word. I have heard my father's knights
use that word also, to describe women who would not be
allowed across the threshold of a church." Miriamele sat
up straight. She was not just teasing. The anger he had
sensed earlier was there, too. "I do not blame you—it is
the nature of men. She is very fetching, in her strange
way."

Simon's laugh was sharp. "I will never understand," he
said.

"What? Understand what?"

"No matter." He shook his head. It would be good to
move the conversation back to safer ground, he decided.
"Ah, I almost forgot." He turned and reached for the
drawstring bag which he had leaned against the weather-
polished wall. "This is a celebration of our birth-days. It
is time for the giving of gifts."

Miriamele looked up, stricken. "Oh, Simon' But I don't
have anything to give you!"

"Just your being here is enough. To see you safe after
all this time ..." His voice broke, making an embarrass-
ing squeak. To cover his chagrin, he cleared his throat.
"But in any case, you have -already given me a fine
present—your scarf." He pulled his collar wide so she
could see it where it nestled about his long neck. "The
finest gift that anyone ever gave me, I think." He smiled
and hid it again. "Now I have something to give to you."
He reached into his bag and pulled out a long slender
something wrapped in a cloth.

"What is it?" The care seemed to slide from her face,
leaving her childlike in her attention to the mysterious
bundle.

"Open it."

She did, unwinding the cloth to disclose the white Sithi
arrow, a streak of ivory fire.

"I want you to have it."

Miriamele looked from the arrow to Simon- Her face
went pale. "Oh, no," she breathed. "No, Simon, I can't."

"What do you mean? Of course you can. It's my gift to
you. Binabik said that it was made by the Sithi fletcher

736

Tad Williams

Vindaomeyo, longer ago than either of us can imagine.
It's the only thing I have to give that's worthy of a prin-
cess, Miriamele—and like it or not, that's what you are."

"No, Simon, no." She pushed the arrow and its cloth
into his hands. "No, Simon. That's the kindest thing any-
one has ever done for me, but I can't take it. It's not just
a thing, it's a promise from Jiriki to you—a pledge. You
told me so. It means too much. The Sithi do not give
these things away for no reason."

"Neither do I," said Simon angrily. So even this was
not good enough, he thought. Under a thin layer of fury
he felt a great reserve of hurt. "I want you to have it."

"Please, Simon. I thank you—you do not understand
how kind I think you are—but it would hurt me too much
to take it from you. I cannot."

Baffled, pained, Simon closed his fingers on the arrow.
His offering had been rejected. He felt wild and full of
folly. "Then wait here," he said, and rose. He was on the
verge of shouting. "Promise me you won't leave this spot
until I come back."

She looked up at him uncertainly, shielding her eyes
from the sun. "If you want me to stay, Simon, I will stay.
Will you be gone long?"

"No." He turned toward the crumbling gateway of the
great wall. Before he had gone ten steps, he quickened his
pace to a run.

When he returned, Miriamele was still seated in the
same place. She had found the pomegranate he had hid-
den as a last surprise.

"I'm sorry," she said, "but I was restless. I got this
open, but I haven't eaten any yet." She showed him the
seeds lined up on the split fruit like rows of gems. "What
have you got in your hand?"

Simon drew his sword out of the tangle of his cloak. As
Miriamete watched, her apprehension far from gone, he
kneeled before her.

"Miriamele ... Princess ... I will give you the only
gift I have left to give." He extended the hilt of his sword
toward her, lowering his head and staring fixedly at the

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER

737

jungle of grass around his boots. "My service. I am a
knight now. I swear that you are my mistress, and that I
will serve you as your protector ... if you will have me."

Simon looked up out of the corner of his eye.
Miriamele's face was awash in emotions, none of which
he could identify. "Oh, Simon," she said.

"If you will not have me, or cannot for some reason
I'm still too stupid to know, then just tell me. We can still
be friends."

There was a long pause. Simon looked down at the
ground again and felt his head spinning.

"Of course," she said at last. "Of course I will have
you, dear Simon." There was an odd catch in her voice.
She laughed raggedly. "But I will never forgive you for
this."

He looked up, alarmed, to see if she was joking. Her
mouth was curved in a trembling half-smile, but her eyes
were closed again. There was a gleam like tears on her
lashes. He could not tell if she was happy or sad.

"What do I do?" she asked.

"I'm not sure. Take the hilt and then touch my shoul-
ders with the blade, I suppose, like Josua did to me. Say:

'You will be my champion.' "-

She took the hilt and held it for a moment against her
cheek, then lifted the sword and touched his shoulders in
turn, left and right.

"You will be my champion, Simon," she whispered.

"I will."

^

The torches in Leavetaking House had burned low. It
was long past time for the evening meal, but no one had
said a word about eating.

"This is the third day of the Raed," Prince Josua said.
"We are all tired. I beg your attention for just a few mo-
ments more." He drew his hand across his eyes.

Isgrimnur thought that of all those assembled in the
room, it was the prince himself who most showed the
strain of the long days and the acrimonious arguments. In

738 Tad Williams

attempting to let everyone have his or her fair say, Josua
had been dragged along through many a side issue—and
the onetime master of Elvntshalla did not approve at all.
Prince Josua would never survive the rigors of a cam-
paign against his brother if he did not harden himself. He
had improved some since Isgrimnur had seen him last—
the journey to this strange place seemed to have changed
everyone who made it—but the duke still did not think
Josua had grasped the trick of listening without being led.
Without that, he thought sourly, no ruler could long sur-
vive.

The disagreements were many. The Thrithings-men did
not trust the hardiness of the New Gadrinsett folk and
feared that they would become a burden on the wagon-
clans when Josua moved his camp down onto the grass-
lands. In turn, the settlers were not certain that they
wanted to leave their new lives to go somewhere else
since they would not even have new lands to settle until
Josua took some territory from his brother or Benigaris.

Freosel and Sludig, who had become Josua's war com-
manders after the death of Deomoth, also disagreed bit-
terly over where the prince should go. Sludig sided with
his liege-lord Isgrimnur in urging an attack on Nabban.
Freosel, like many others, felt an excursion into the south
missed the true point. He was an Erkynlander, and
Erkynland was not only Josua's own country, but also the
place that had been most blighted by Elias' misrule.
Freosel had made it clear that he felt they should move
westward to the outer fiefdoms of Erkynland, gathering
strength from the High King's disaffected subjects before
marching on the Hayholt itself.

Isgrimnur sighed and scratched his chin, indulging for
a moment in the pleasure of his regrown beard. He longed
to stand up and simply tell everyone what they should do
and how to do it. He even sensed that Josua would se-
cretly welcome having the burden of leadership lifted
from his shoulders—but such a thing could not be al-
lowed. The duke knew that as soon as the prince lost his
preeminence, the factions would dissolve and any chance
of an organized resistance to Elias would collapse.

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER                           739

"Sir Camaris," Josua said abruptly, turning to the old
knight. "You have been mostly silent. Yet if we are to ride
on Nabban, as Isgrimnur and others urge us, you will be
our banner. I need to hear your thoughts."

The old man had indeed remained aloof, although
Isgrimnur doubted it was from disapproval or disagree-
ment- Rather, Camaris had listened to the arguments like
a holy man on a bench in the midst of a tavern brawl,
present and yet separate, his attention fixed on something
that others could not see-

"I cannot tell you what is the right thing to do. Prince
Josua." The old knight spoke, as he had since regaining
his wits, with a sort of effortless dignity. His old-
fashioned, courtly speech was so careful as to seem al-
most a parody; he might have been the Good Peasant
from the proverbs of the Book of the Aedon, "That is be-
yond me, nor would I presume to interpose myself be-
tween you and God, who is the final answerer of all
questions. I can only tell you what I think." He leaned
forward, staring down at his long-fingered hands, which
were twined on the table before him as if he prayed.
"Much of what has been said is still incomprehensible to
me—your brothers bargain with this Storm King, who
was only a dim legend in my day; the part you say the
swords are to play, my black blade Thorn among them—it
is all most strange, most strange.

"But I do know that I loved well my brother,
Leobardis, and from what you said, he served Nabban
honorably in the years I was insensible—better than I
ever could have, I think. He was a man who was made to
govern other men; I am not.

"His son Benigaris I knew only as a bawling infant. It
gnaws at my soul to think that someone of my father's
house could be a patricide, but I cannot doubt the evi-
dence I have heard." He shook his head slowly, a tired
war-horse. "I cannot tell you to go to Nabban, or to
Erkynland, or anywhere else upon (he Lord's green earth.
But if you decide to march on Nabban, Josua ... then,
yes, I will ride before the armies. If the people will use
my name, I will not stop them, although I do not find it

740 Tad Williams

knightly: only our Ransomer should be exalted by the
voices of men. But I cannot let such shame to the
Benidrivine House go unheeded.

"So if that is the answer you seek from me, Josua, then
you have it now." He raised his hand in a gesture of fe-
alty. "Yes, I will ride to Nabban. But I wish I had nol
been brought back to see my friend John's kingdom in
ruins and my own beloved Nabban ground beneath the
heel of my murderous nephew. It is cruel." He dropped
his gaze to the table once more. "This is one of the stern-
est tests God has given me, and I have failed Him already
more times than I can count."

When he had finished speaking, the old man's words
seemed to linger in the air like incense, a fog of compli-
cated regret that filled the room. No one dared to break
the stillness until Josua spoke.

"Thank you. Sir Camaris. I think I know what it will
cost you to ride against your own countrymen. I am heart-
sick that we may have to force it upon you." He looked
around the torchlit hall. "Is there anyone else who would
speak before we are finished?"

Beside him, Vorzheva moved on the bench as though
she might say something, but instead she stared angrily al
Josua, who slipped her gaze as though he found it uncom-
fortable. Isgrimnur guessed what had passed between
them—Josua had told him of her desire to stay until the
child was bom—and frowned; the prince did not need any
further doubts clouding his decision,

Many cubits down the long table, Geloe stood. "I think
there is one last thing, Josua. It is something that Fatnei
Strangyeard and I discovered only last night." She turned
to the priest, who was sitting beside her. "Strangyeard?"

The archivist stood up, fingering a stack of parchments.
He lifted a hand to straighten his eyepatch, then looked
worriedly at some of the nearby faces, as though he had
suddenly found himself called before a tribunal and
charged with heresy.

"Yes," he said. "Oh, yes. Yes, there is something im-
portant—your pardon, something that may be impor-
tant . -." He riffled through the pages before him.

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER 741

"Come, Strangyeard," the prince said kindly. "We are
anxious to have you share your discovery with us."

"Ah, yes. We found something in Morgenes' manu-
script. In his life of King John Presbyter." He held up
some of the parchment sheets for the benefit of those who
had not already seen Doctor Morgenes' book. "Also,
from speaking to Tiamak of the Wran," he gestured with
the sheaf toward the marsh man, "we found that it was
something that much concerned Morgenes even after he
began to see the outlines of Ellas' bargain with the Storm
King. It worried him, you see- Morgenes, that is."

"See what?" Isgrimnur's rear end was beginning to
hurt from the hard chair, and his back had been griping
him for hours. "What worried him?"

"Oh!" Strangyeard was startled. "Apologies, many
apologies. The bearded star, of course. The comet."

"There was such a star in the skies during my brother's
regnal year," Josua mused. "As a matter of fact, it was the
night of his coronation we first saw it. The night my fa-
ther was buried."

"That's the one!" Strangyeard said excitedly. "The
Asdridan Condiquilles—the Conqueror Star. Here, I'll
read what Morgenes wrote about it." He pawed at the
parchment.

"... Strangely enough, "
he began,

"the Conqueror Star, instead of shining above the
birth or triumph of conquerors as its name might
suggest, seems instead to appear as a herald of
the death of empires. It trumpeted the downfall of
Khand, of the old Sea Kingdoms, and even the
ending of what may have been the greatest em-
pire of all—the Sithi mastery ofOsten Ard, which
came to an end when their great stronghold
Asu'a fell. The first records collected by scholars
of the League of the Scroll tell that the Con-
queror Star was bright in the night sky above

742                   Tad Williams

Asu'a when Ineluki, lyu'unigato's son, pondered
the spell that would soon destroy the Sithi castle
and a large part of Fingil 's Rimmersgard army.

"It is said that the only event of pure conquest
that ever saw the Conqueror Star's light was the
triumph of the Ransomer. Usires Aedon, since it
shone in the skies above Nabban when Usires
hung on the Execution Tree. However, the argu-
ment could be made that there, too, it heralded
decline and collapse, since Aedon's death was the
beginning of the ultimate collapse of the mighty
Nabbanai Imperium...."

Strangyeard took a breath. His eyes were shining now:

Morgenes' words had driven out his discomfort at speak-
ing to a crowd. "So you see, there is some significance to
this, we think."

"But why, exactly?" Josua asked. "It already appeared
at the beginning of my brother's regnal year. If the de-
struction of an empire has been forecast, what of it? No
doubt it is my brother's empire that will fall." He showed
a weak smile. There was a small rustle of laughter from
the assembly.

"But that is not the whole story, Prince Josua," Geloe
said. "Dinivan and others—Doctor Morgenes, too, before
his death—studied this matter. The Conqueror Star, you
see, is not yet gone. It will be coming back."

"What do you mean?"

Binabik rose. "Every five hundreds of years, Dinivan
was discovering," he explained, "the star is in the sky not
once, but three times. It is appearing for three years,
bright the first, then almost too dim for seeing the second,
then most bright of all for the last."

"So it is coming back this year, at the end of the win-
ter," Geloe said. "For the third time. The last time it did
that was the year Asu'a fell."

"I still don't understand," Josua said. "I believe that
what you say may be important, but we already have
many mysteries to think about. What does the star mean
to us?"

TO   GRE^N   ANGEL   TOWER

743

Geloe shook her head. "Perhaps nothing. Perhaps, as in
the past, it heralds the passing of a great kingdom—but
whether that would be the High King's, the Storm King's,
or your father's if we are defeated, none of us can say. It
seems unlikely that an occurrence with such a fateful his-
tory would mean nothing, however."

"I am in agreement," Binabik said. "This is not the sea-
son for the dismissing of such things as coincidence."

Josua looked around in frustration, as though hoping
someone else at the long table could provide an answer.
"But what does it mean? And what are we supposed to do
about it?"

"First, it could be that only when the star is in the sky
will the swords be of use to us," Geloe offered. "Their
value seems to be in their otherworldliness- Perhaps the
heavens are showing us when they will be most useful."
She shrugged her shoulders. "Or perhaps that will be a
time when Ineluki will be strongest, and most able to help
Elias against us, since it was five centuries ago he spoke
the spell that made him what he is now. In that case, we
will need to reach the Hayholt before that times comes
'round again."

Silence descended on the vasf chamber, broken only by
the quiet murmuring of the fireplace flames. Josua shuf-
fled absently through a few pages of Morgenes' manu-
script.

"And you have learned nothing further about the
swords on which we have staked so much—nothing
which would be of use to us?" he demanded.

Binabik shook his head. "We have been speaking now
many times with Sir Camaris." The little man gave the
old knight a respectful nod. "He has been telling us what
he knows of the sword Thorn and its properties, but we
have not yet learned of anything that tells us what we
may do with it and the others."

"Then we can't afford to bet our lives on them," Sludig
said. "Magic and fairy-tricks will turn traitor every time."

"You speak about things you do not know ..." Geloe
began grimly.

Josua sat up. "Stop. It is too late in the day to abandon

744

Tad Williams

the three swords. If it was my brother alone we fought,
then perhaps we might chance it. But the Storm King's
hand has apparently been behind him at every step of his
progress, and the swords are our only thin hope against

that dark, dark scourge."

Miriamele now stood. "Then let me ask again/Uncle
Josua ... Prince Josua, that we go directly to Erkynland.
If the swords are valuable, then we need to take Sorrow
back from my father and recover Bright-Nail from my
grandfather's grave. From what Geloe and Binabik are
saying, we seem to have little time."

Her face was solemn, but Duke Isgrimnur thought he
sensed desperation behind her words. That surprised him.
Important, all-important as these decisions were, why
should little Miriamele sound like her own life was so ab-
solutely dependent on going straight to Erkynland and
confronting her father?

Josua's look was cool. "Thank you, Miriamele. I have
listened to what you say. I value your counsel." He turned
to face the rest of the assembly. "Now I must tell you my
decision." The desire to be finished with all this was au-
dible in his every word.

"Here are my choices. To remain here—to build up this
place, New Gadrinsett, and hold out against my brother
until his misrule turns the tide in our favor. That is one
possibility." Josua ran his hand through his short hair,
then held up two fingers. "The second is to go to Nabban,
where with Camaris to march at the head of our army, we
may quickly gain adherents, and thus eventually field an
army capable of bringing down the High King." The
prince raised a third finger. "The third, as Miriamele and
Freosel and others have suggested, is to move directly
into Erkynland, gambling that we can find enough sup-
porters to overcome Elias' defenses. There is also a pos-
sibility that Isorn and Count Eolair of Nad Mullach may
be able to join us with men recruited in the Frostmarch

and Hemystir."

Young Simon rose. "I beg your pardon. Prince Josua.
Don't forget the Sithi."

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

745

"Nothing is promised, Seoman," said the Sitha woman
Aditu. "Nothing can be."

Isgrimnur was a little taken aback. She had sat so qui-
etly during the debate that he had forgotten she was here.
He wondered if it had been wise to talk so openly before
her. What did Josua and the rest truly know about the im-
mortals, anyway?

"And perhaps the Sithi will join with us," Josua
amended, "although as Aditu has told us, she does not
know what is happening in Hemystir, or what exactly her
folk plan to do next." The prince closed his eyes for a
long moment.

"Added to these possibilities," he said at last, "is the
need to recover the other two Great Swords, and also
what we have learned here today about the Conqueror
Star—which is little, I must say frankly, except that it
may have some bearing on things." He turned to Geloe.
"Obviously, if you learn more I ask to hear it at once."

The witch woman nodded.

"I wish that we could stay here." Josua looked quickly
at Vorzheva, but she would not meet his eyes. "I would
like nothing better than to see my child born here in
something like safety. I would love to see all our settlers
make of this ancient place a new and living city, a refuge
for all who sought one. But we cannot stay. We are nearly
out of food as it is, and more outcasts and war victims are
arriving every day. And if we stay longer, we invite my
brother sending a more formidable army than Fengbald's.
It is also my sense that the time for a defensive game is
past. So, we will move on.

"Of our two alternatives, I must, after much thought,
choose Nabban. We are not strong enough to confront
Elias directly now, and I fear that Erkynland is so much
reduced that we might find it hard to raise an army there.
Also, if we failed, we would have nowhere to run but
back across the empty lands to this place. I cannot guess
how many would die just trying to flee a failed battle, let
alone in the battle itself between Elias' troops and our
ragtag army.

"So it will be Nabban. We will go far before Benisaris

746 Tad Williams

can bring an army to bear, and in that time Camaris may
lure many to our banner. If we are lucky enough to force
Benigaris and his mother out, Camaris will also have the
ships of Nabban to put at our service, making it easier for
us to move against my brother."

He raised his arms, silencing the gathering as whispers
began to fill the room. "But this much of the Scroll
League's warnings about the Conqueror Star will I take to
heart. I would rather not ride out in winter, especially
since it has long seemed the tool of the Storm King, but
I think that the sooner we can make our way from
Nabban to Erkynland, the better. If the star is a herald of
empire's fall, still it need not be our herald as well: we
will try to reach the Hayholt before it appears. We will
hope that this mildness in the weather will hold, and we
will leave this place in a fortnight. That is my decision."
He lowered his hand to the tabletop. "Now go, all of you,
and get some sleep. There is no point in further arguing.
We leave this place for Nabban."

Voices were raised as some of those gathered began to
call out questions. "Enough!" Josua cried. "Go and leave
me in peace!"

As he helped herd the others out, Isgrimnur looked
back. Josua was slumped in his chair, rubbing his temples
with his fingers. Beside him Vorzheva sat and stared
straight ahead, as though her husband were a thousand
miles away.

^

Pryrates emerged from the stairwell into the bell-
chamber. The high-arching windows were open to the el-
ements, and the winds that swirled around Green Angel
Tower fluttered his red robe. He stopped, his boot heels
clicking once more on the stone tiles before silence fell.
"You sent for me, Your Highness?" he asked at last.
Elias was staring out across the jumble of the Hayholt's
roofs, looking toward the east. The sun had dropped below
the western rim of the world and the sky was full of heavy
black clouds. The entire land had fallen into shadow.

TO  GREEN   ANGEL  TOWER

747

"Fengbald is dead," the king said. "He has failed.
Josua has beaten him."

Pryrates was startled. "How could you know!?"

The High King whirled. "What do you mean, priest? A
half-dozen Erkyn guards men arrived this morning, the
remnants of Fengbald's army. They told me many surpris-
ing tales. But you sound as though you knew already."

"No, Highness," the alchemist said hastily. "I was just
surprised that I was not informed immediately when the
guardsmen arrived. It is usually the king's counselor's
task ..."

". -. To sift through the news and decide what his mas-
ter is allowed to hear," Elias finished for him. The king's
eyes glittered. His smile was not pleasant. "I have many
sources of information, Pryrates. Never forget that."

The priest bowed stiffly. "If I have offended you, my
king, I beg your forgiveness."

Elias contemplated him for a moment, then turned back
to the window. "I should have known better than to send
that braggart Fengbald. I should have known he would
muck it up. Blood and damnation!" He slapped his palms
on the stone sill. "If only I could have sent Guthwulf."

"The Earl of Utanyeat proved" himself a traitor. High-
ness," Pryrates observed mildly.

"Traitor or not, he was the finest soldier I have ever
seen. He would have ground up my brother and his peas-
ant army like pig meat." The king bent and picked up a
loose stone, holding it before his eyes for a moment be-
fore flinging it out the window. He watched its fall in si-
lence before speaking again. "Now Josua will move
against me. I know him. He has always wanted to take the
throne from me. He never forgave my being firstborn, but
he was too clever to say so aloud- He is subtle, my
brother. Quiet but poisonous, like an adder." The king's
pale face was drawn and haggard, but he seemed never-
theless full of an awful vitality. His fingers curled and un-
curled spasmodically. "He will not find me unready, will
he, Pryrates?"

The alchemist allowed a smile to curl his own thin lips.
"No, my lord, he will not."

748 Tad Williams

"I have friends, now—powerful friends." The king's
hand dropped to the double hilt of Sorrow, sheathed at his
waist. "And there are things afoot that Josua could never
dream of if he lived for centuries. Things he will never
guess until it is too late." He drew the sword from its
scabbard. The mottled gray blade seemed a living thing,
something putled against its will from beneath a rock. As
Elias held it before him, the wind lifted his cloak, spread-
ing it above him like wings; for a moment, the blotchy
twilight made him a pinioned thing, a demon out of dark
ages past. "He and all he leads will die, Pryrates," the
king hissed. "They do not know who they meddle with."

Pryrates regarded him with genuine uneasiness. "Your
brother does not know, my king. But you will show him."

Elias turned and brandished the sword at the eastern
horizon. In the distance, a flicker of lightning played
across the turbulent darkness.

"Come, then!" he shouted. "Come, all of you! There is
death enough to be shared! No one will take the
Dragonbone Chair from me. No one can!"

As if in answer, there came a dim rumble of thunder.

25

The Semfitonce of Heaven

*

They rode down out of the north on black horses-
steeds raised in cold darkness, surefooted in deep night,
unafraid of icy wind or high mountain passes- The riders
were three, two women and one man, all Cloud Children,
and their deaths were already being sung by the Lightless
Ones, since there was little chance they would ever return
to Nakkiga. They were the Talons of Utuk'ku.

As they departed Stormspike, they rode through the
ruins of the old city, Nakkiga-that-was, sparing hardly a
glance to the tumbled relics of an age when their people
had still lived beneath the sun-. By night they passed
through the villages of the Black Rimmersmen. There
they met no one, since the inhabitants of those settle-
ments, like all the mortals in that ill-fated land, knew bet-
ter than to stir our of doors once twilight had fallen.

Despite the speed and vigor of their mounts, the three
riders were many nights crossing the Frostmarch. Except
for those sleepers in remote settlements who suffered un-
expectedly bad dreams, or the rare travelers who noticed
an added chill to the already freezing wind, the riders
went unperceived. They continued on in silence and
shadow until they reached Naglimund.

They stopped there to rest their horses—even the cruel
discipline of the Stormspike stables could not prevent a
living animal from tiring eventually—and to confer with
those of their kind who now made Josua of Erknyland's
desolated castle their home. The leader of Utuk'ku's
Talons—although she was only first-among-equals—paid

75"

Tad Williams

uncomfortable homage to the castle's shrouded master,
one of the Red Hand. He sat in his gray winding sheets
peeping ember-red at every crease, on the smoldering
wreckage of what had once been Josua's princely throne
of state. She was respectful, although she did nothing
more than that which was necessary. Even to the Noms,
hardened through the long centuries, blasted by their cold
exile, the Storm King's minions were unsettling. Like
their master, they had gone beyond—they had tasted
Unbeing and then returned; they were as different from
their still-living brethren as a star was from a starfish.
The Noms did not like the Red Hand, did not like the
singed emptiness of them—each one of the five was little
more than a hole in the stuff of reality, a hole filled by
hatred—but as long as their mistress made Ineluki's war
her own, they had little choice but to bow before the
Storm King's chief servants.

They also found themselves distanced from their own
brethren. Since the Talons were death-sung, the
Hikeda'ya of Naglimund treated them with reverent si-
lence and boarded them in a cold chamber far from the
rest of the tribe. The three Talons did not stay long in the
wind-haunted castle.

From there they rode over the Stile, through the ruins
of Da'ai Chikiza, and then westward through the
Aldheorte, where the travelers made a wide circle around
the borders of Jao e-Tinukai'i. Utuk'ku and her ally had
already had their confrontation with the Dawn Children
and received its full benefit: this task was one that re-
quired secrecy- Although at times the forest seemed ac-
tively to resist them with paths that abruptly vanished and
tree limbs so close-knit they made the filtered light of the
stars seem different and confusing, still the trio rode on,
heading inexorably southeast. They were the Norn
Queen's chosen: they were not so easily put off their
quarry.

At last they reached the forest's edge. They were close
now to that which they sought. Like Ingen Jegger before
them, they had come down from the north bearing death
for Utuk'ku's enemies, but unlike the Queen's Huntsman,

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

751

who had met defeat the first time he had turned his hand
against the Zida'ya, these three were immortals. There
would be no hurry. There would be no mistakes.
They turned their horses toward Sesuad'ra.

*

"Ah, by the good God, I feel a weight lifted from my
shoulders." Josua took a deep breath. "It is something
fine to be moving at last."

Isgrimnur smiled. "Even if all do not agree," he said.
"Yes. It's good."

Josua and the Duke of Elvritshalla were sitting their
horses by the gate stones that marked the hilltop's edge,
watching the citizens of New Gadrinsett decamp in a
most disorderly fashion. The parade wound past them
down the old Sithi road, spiraling around the bulk of the
Stone of Farewell until it vanished from sight. As many
sheep and cows seemed to be setting out as people, an
army of unhelpful animals bleating, lowing, bumping
along, causing chaos among the overloaded citizenry.
Some of the settlers had built crude wagons and had piled
their possessions high on them, which added to the
strange air of festival.

Josua frowned. "As an army, we look more like a town
fair being moved."

Hotvig, who had just ridden up with Freosel the
Falshireman, laughed. "This is how our clans always look
when they travel. The only difference is that most of
these are your stone-dwellers. You will become accus-
tomed."

Freosel was watching the process critically. "We need
all cattle and sheep we can get. Highness. Many mouths
that need feeding." He awkwardly urged his horse for-
ward a few paces—he was still not used to riding. "Ha,
there!" he shouted. "Give that wagon some room!"

Isgrimnur thought that Josua was right: it did look like
a traveling fair, although this company showed something
less than the cheerfulness that usually attended such
things. There were children crying—although not all the

752 Tad Williams

children were displeased to be traveling, by any
means—as well as a steady undercurrent of bickering and
complaint from the citizens of New Gadrinsett. Few
among them had wanted to leave this place of relative
safety: the idea of somehow forcing Elias from his throne
was remote to them, and almost all the settlers would
have preferred to stay on Sesuad'ra while others dealt
with the grim realities of war—but it was also clear that
staying in this remote place after Josua had taken all the
men-at-arms away was no real alternative. So, angry but
unwilling to risk more suffering without the protection of
the prince's makeshift army, the inhabitants of New
Gadrinsett were following Josua toward Nabban.

"We would not fright a nest of scholars with this lot,"
the prince said, "let alone my brother. Yet, I do not think
the less of them—of any of us—for our rags and poor
weaponry." He smiled. "In truth, I think I know for the
first time what my father felt. I have always treated my
liege-men as well as I could, since that is what God
would have me do, but I never felt the strong love that
Prester John did for all his subjects." Josua stroked
Vinyafod's neck meditatively. "Would that the old man
could have saved some of that love for both his sons as
well. Still, I think I finally know what he felt when he
rode out through the Nearulagh Gate and down into
Erchester. He would have given his life for those people,
as I would give mine for these." The prince smiled again,
shyly, as if embarrassed by what he had revealed. "I will
bring this beloved rabble of mine safe through Nabban,
Isgrimnur, whatever it takes. But when we get to
Erkynland, we are putting the dice into the hands of
God—and who knows what He wilt do with them?"

"Not a one of us," Isgrimnur said, "And good deeds do
not buy His favor, either. At least your Father Strangyeard
said that to me the other night, that he thought it might be
as much a sin to try to buy God's love by good deeds as
it is to do bad ones."

A mule—one of the few such on all of Sesuad'ra—was
balking at the rim of the road. His owner was pushing at
the cart to which the mule was tethered, trying to urge

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER

753

him along from behind. The beast had gone stiff and
spread-legged, silent but implacable. The owner moved
forward and laid a switch across the mule's back, but the
creature only dropped back its ears and lifted its head, ac-
cepting the blows with mutely stubborn hostility. The
owner's curses filled the morning air, echoed by the peo-
ple trapped behind his stalled cart.

Josua laughed and leaned closer to Isgrimnur. "If you
would see what I look like to myself, gaze on that poor
beast. If it were uphill, he would pull all day and never
show a moment's weariness. But now he has a long and
dangerous downward track before him and a heavy cart
behind him—no wonder he digs in his heels. He would
wait until the Day of Weighing-Out if he could." His grin
faded and he turned to fix the duke with his gray eyes.
"But I have interrupted you. Say again what Strangyeard
told you."

Isgrimnur stared at the mule and its drover. There was
something both comic and pathetic about it, something
that seemed to hint at more than it revealed. "The priest
said that trying to buy God's favor with good deeds was
a sin. Well, first he apologized for having any thoughts at
all—you know how he is, skittery mouse of a man—but
said it anyway. That God owes us nothing, and we owe
Him all, that we should do right things because they are
right and that is closest to God, not because we will be re-
warded like children given sweetmeats for sitting qui-
etly."

"Father Strangyeard is a mouse, yes," said Josua. "But
a mouse can be brave. Small as they are, though, they
learn it is wiser not to challenge the cat. So it is with
Strangyeard, I think. He knows who he is and where he
belongs." Josua's eyes strayed upward from the futile
flogging of the mule to the western hills that walled the
valley. "I will think on what he said, though. Sometimes
we do act as God bids us out of fear or hope of reward.
Yes, I will think on what he said."

Isgrimnur suddenly wished he had kept his mouth
closed.

That's all Josua needs—another reason to fault himself.

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Keep him moving, old man, not thinking. He is magical
when he throws away his cares. He is a true prince, then.
That is what will give us a chance of living to talk about
such things over the fire someday.

"What do you say we move this idiot and his mule out
of the road?" Isgrimnur suggested. "Otherwise, this place
is going to be less like a town fair and more like the Bat-
tle of Neamlagh soon."

"Yes, I think so." Josua smiled again, sunny as the
cold, bright morning. "But I don't think it's the idiot dro-
ver who will need convincing—and mules are no respect-
ers of princes."

A

"Yah, Nimsuk!" Binabik called. "Where is Sisqinana-
mook?"

The herder turned and raised his crook-spear in greet-
ing. "She is by the boais. Singing Man. Checking for
leaks so the rams' feet don't get wet!" He laughed, dis-
playing an uneven mouthful of yellow teeth.

"And so you don't have to swim, since you'd sink to
the bottom like a rock," Binabik grinned back. "They'd
find you in the summer when the water went away, a little
man of mud. Show some respect."

"It's too sunny," Nimsuk replied. "Look at them frisk!"
He pointed to the rams, who were indeed very lively, sev-
eral of them playing at mock combat, something they
almost never did.

"Just don't let them kill each other," Binabik said. "En-
joy your rest." He bent and whispered into Qantaqa's ear.
The wolf leaped forward over the snow with the troll
clinging to her hackles.

Sisqi was indeed inspecting the flatboats. Binabik re-
leased Qantaqa, who shook herself vigorously and trotted
off to the nearby skirts of the forest. Binabik watched his
betrothed with a smile. She was examining the boats as
distrustfully as a lowlander might count me lashings on a
Qanuc chasm-bridge.

"So careful," Binabik chided her, laughing. "Most of

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

755

our people are crossed already." He waved his arm at the
stippling of white rams dotted across the valley floor, the
knots of troll herdsmen and huntresses enjoying the short
hour of peace before the journeying began once more.

"And I will see every single one across safely." Sisqi
turned and opened her arms to him. They stood face-to-
face for a while, unspeaking. 'This traveling-on-water is
one thing when a few are fishing on Blue Mud Lake," she
said eventually, "another when I must trust the lives of all
my people and rams."

"They are fortunate in your care," Binabik said, serious
now. "But for a moment, forget the boats."

She squeezed him hard. "I have."

Binabik lifted his head and looked out across the val-
ley. The snow was melted in many places, with tufts of
yellow-green grass showing through. "The herds will eat
until they are sick," he said. "They are not used to such
abundance."

"Is the snow going away?" she asked. "You said before
that these lands were normally not snowbound at this
time of year."

"Not always, but the winter has spread far south. Still,
it does seem to be falling back again." He looked up into
the sky. The few clouds did not in the least diminish the
strength of the sun. "I do not know what to think. I can-
not believe that he who made the winter reach down so
far has given up. I do not know." He freed a hand from
Sisqi's side and bumped it once against his breastbone. "I
came to say that I am sorry I have seen you so little of
late. There has been much to decide. Geloe and the others
have been working long hours with Morgenes' book, try-
ing to find the answers we yet seek. We have been study-
ing Ookequk's scrolls as well, and that cannot be done
without me."

Sisqi raised the hand of his she retained up to her
cheek, pressing it there before letting it go. "You have no
need for sorrow. I know what you do ..." she inclined her
head toward the boats bobbing at the water's edge,
"... just as you know what I must do." She lowered her
eyes. "I saw you stand at the lowlander's council and

756

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speak. I could not understand most of the words, but I
saw them watching you with respect, Binbiniqegabenik."
She gave his full name a ritual sound. "I was proud of
you, my man. I only wish my mother and father could see
you as I did. As I do."

Binabik snorted, but he was obviously pleased. "I do
not think that the respect of lowlanders would count for
much on your parents' tally stick. But I thank you. The
lowlanders think highly of you, too—of all our people,
after having seen us in battle." His round face grew seri-
ous. "And that is the other thing I wished to speak of.
You told me once that you thought to go back to Yiqanuc.
Will you do that soon?"

"I am still considering," she said. "I know we are
needed by my mother and father, but I also think there are
things we can do here. Lowlanders and trolls fighting
together—perhaps that is something that will make our
people safer in days ahead."

"Clever Sisql," Binabik smiled. "But the fighting may
grow too fierce for our folk. You have never seen a war
for a castle—what the lowlanders call a 'siege.' There
might be scant place for our people in such a battle, yet
much danger. And at least one or two battles of that kind
lie before Josua and his people."

She nodded her head solemnly. "I know. But there is a
more important reason, Binabik. I would find it very hard
to leave you again."

He looked away. "As I found it hard to leave you when
Ookequk took me south—but both of us know that there
are duties that make us do what we wish we did not have
to." Binabik slid his arm through hers. "Come, let us
walk for a while, since we will not have much time to be
together in days ahead."

They turned and made their way back toward the base
of the hill, avoiding the press of people waiting for boats.
"I regret most that these troubles prevent us from our
marriage," he said.

"The words, only. The night I came for you, to set you
free, we were married. Even had we never seen each
other again."

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER                           757

Binabik hunched his shoulders. "I know. But you
should have the words. You are the daughter of the Hunt-
ress."

"We have separate tents," Sisqi smiled. "All that is
honorable is observed."

"And I do not mind sharing mine with young Simon,"
he shot back. "But I would prefer sharing with you."

"We have our times." She squeezed his hand. "And
what will you do when this is all over, my dear one?" She
kept her voice steady, as if there were little question
whether there would be an afterward. Qantaqa appeared
from the curve of the forest and loped toward them.

"What do you mean? You and I will go back to
Mintahoq—or, if you have already gone, I will come to
you."

"But what about Simon?"

Binabik had slowed his pace. Now he stopped and
pushed snow from a hanging branch with his stick. Here
in the hill's long shadow, the iaucou& noise of the de-
parting throngs was less. "I do not know. I am bound to
him by promises, but the day will come when those can
be discharged. After that..." He shrugged, a trollish ges-
ture made with his palms held out. "I do not know what
I am to him, Sisqi. Not a brother, not a father, cer-
tainly. ..."

"A friend?" she suggested gently. Qantaqa was beside
her, nosing at her hand. She scratched the wolf's muzzle,
running her fingers along jaws that could swallow her
arm to the elbow. The wolf growled contentedly.

"Certainly that. He is a good boy. No, he is a good
man, I suppose. I have watched him growing."

"May Qinkipa of the Snows bring us all through this
safely," she said gravely. "Simon to grow happily old,
you and I to love each other and raise children, our kind
to keep our mountains as our home. I am not frightened
of lowlanders any more, Binabik, but I am happier among
people I understand."

He turned and pulled her close. "May Qinkipa grant
what you ask. And don't forget," he said, reaching out to
lay his fingers next to hers where they touched the wolf's

758

Tad Williams

neck, "we must wish for the Snow Maiden to protect
Qantaqa, too." He grinned. "Come, go with me a little
farther. I know a quiet spot on the hillside, sheltered from
the wind—the last private place we may see for day upon
day upon day."

"But the boats, Singing Man," she teased. "I must look
at them again."

"You have looked at each one a dozen times," he said.
"Trolls could swim laughing through that water if they
had to. Come."

She put her arm around him and they went, heads lean-
ing close together. The wolf padded after them, silent as
a gray shadow.

«

"Blast you, Simon, that hurt!" Jeremias fell back, suck-
ing on his wounded fingers. "Just because you're a knight
doesn't mean you have to break my hand."

Simon straightened up. "I'm just trying to show you
something Sludig taught me. And I need the practice.
Don't be a baby."

Jeremias gave him a disgusted look. "I'm not a baby,
Simon. And you're not Sludig. I don't even think you're
doing it right."

Simon took a few deep breaths, righting down a cross
remark. It wasn't Jeremias' fault that he was restless. He
hadn't been able to speak to Miriamele for days, and de-
spite the huge and complicated process of breaking camp
on Sesuad'ra, there still seemed little of importance for
Simon to do. "I'm sorry. I was stupid to say that." He
lifted the practice sword, made of timbers rescued from
the war barricade. "Just let me show this to you, this
thing where you turn the blade ..." He reached out and
engaged Jeremias' wooden weapon, "Like ... so . -."

Jeremias sighed. "I wish you would just go and talk to
the princess instead of beating on me, Simon." He raised
the sword. "Oh, come on, then."

They feinted and engaged, the blades clacking loudly.
Some of the sheep pasturing nearby looked up long

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER

759

enough to see if the rams were fighting again; when it
proved instead to be a contest of two-legged younglings,
they turned back to their grass.

"Why did you say that about the princess?" Simon
asked, panting.

"What?" Jeremias was trying to stay out of reach of his
opponent's longer arms. "Why do you think? You've
been moping around after her since she got here."

"I have not."

Jeremias stepped back and let the point of his stave-
sword sag to the ground. "Oh, you haven't? It must have
been some other hulking, red-haired idiot."

Simon smiled, embarrassed. "That easy to tell, is it?"

"Usires Ransomer, yes' And who wouldn't? She's cer-
tainly pretty, and she seems kind."

"She's ... more than that- But why aren't you moping
after her, then?"

Jeremias darted him a quick, hurt look. "As if she
would notice me if I fell dead at her feet." His face grew
mocking. "Not that she seems to be flinging herself at
you, either."

That's not funny," said Simon darkly.

Jeremias took pity. "I'm sorry, Simon- I'm sure being
in love is horrible. Look, go ahead and break the rest of
my fingers if it will make you feel better."

"It might." Simon grinned and raised his blade once
more. "Now, damn you, Jeremias, do this right"

"Make someone a knight," Jeremias huffed, dodging a
downward blow, "and you ruin his friends' lives forever."

The noise of their conflict rose again, the irregular
smack of blade on blade fierce as the hammering of a
huge and drunken woodpecker.

They sat gasping on the wet grass, sharing a water skin.
Simon had untied the neck of his shirt to let the wind at
his heated skin. Soon he would be uncomfortably chilly,
but at the moment the air felt wonderful. A shadow fell
between the two of them and they looked up, startled.

"Sir Camaris!" Simon struggled to rise. Jeremias just
stared, wide-eyed.

760 Tad Williams

"fiea, sit, young man." The old man spread his fingers,
gesturing Simon back down. "I was only watching the
two of you at your bladework."

"We don't know much," Simon said modestly.

"That you do not."

Simon had been half-hoping that Camaris would con-
tradict him. "Sludig tried to teach me what he could," he
said, trying to keep his voice respectful. "We haven't had
much time."

"Sludig. That is Isgrimnur's liege-man." He looked at
Simon intently. "And you are the castle-lad, are you not?
The one that Josua knighted?" For the first time, it was
apparent that he had a faint accent. The slightly over-
rounded roll of Nabbanai speech still clung to his stately
phrases.

"Yes, Sir Camaris. Simon is my name. And this is my
friend—and my squire—Jeremias."

The old man flicked his gaze to Jelcmias and dipped
his chin briefly before returning his pale blue eyes to Si-
mon. "Things have changed," he said slowly. "And not
for the better, I think."

Simon waited a moment for Camaris to explain. "What
do you mean, sire?" he asked.

The old man sighed. "It is not your fault, young fellow.
I know that a monarch must sometimes make knights
upon the field, and I do not doubt that you have done no-
ble deeds—I heard you helped find my blade Thorn—but
there is more to knighthood than a touch of a sword. It is
a high calling, Simon ... a high calling."

"Sir Deornoth tried to teach me what I needed to
know," Simon said. "Before I had my vigil, he taught me
about the Canon of Knighthood."

Camaris sat down, astonishingly nimble for a man of
his age. "But even so, lad, even so. Do you know how
long I was in service to Gavenaxes of Honsa Claves, as
page and squire?"
"No, sire."

"Twelve years. And every day, young Simon, every
single day was a lesson. It took me two long years simply

TO GREhN ANGfcL TOWER           761

to learn how to care for Gavenaxes' horses. You have a
horse, do you not?"

"Yes, sire." Simon was uncomfortable yet fascinated.
The greatest knight in the history of the world was talking
to him about the rules of knighthood. Any young noble-
man from Rimmersgard to Nabban would have given his
left arm to be in Simon's place. "She's called Homefind-
er."

Camaris gave him a sharp look, as though he disap-
proved of the name, but went on as though he did not.
'Then you must leam to care for her properly. She is
more than a friend, Simon, she is as much a part of you
as your two legs and two arms. A knight who cannot trust
his horse, who does not know his horse as well as he
knows himself, who has not cleaned and repaired every
piece of harness a thousand times—well, he will be of lit-
tle use to himself or to God."

"I am trying. Sir Camaris. But there is so much to
leam."

"Admittedly it is a time of war," Camaris continued.
"So it is quite permissible to slight some of the less cru-
cial arts—hunting and hawking and suchlike." But he did
not look as though he was entirely comfortable with this
thought. "It is even conceivable that the rules of prece-
dence are not so important as at other times, except inso-
far as they impinge on military discipline; still, it is easier
to fight when you know your place in God's wise plan.
Little wonder the battle here with the king's men was a
brawl." His look of severe concentration abruptly sof-
tened; his eyes turned mild. "But I am boring you, am I
not?" His lips quirked- "I have been as one asleep for two
score years, but still I am an old man, for all that. It is not
my world."

"Oh. no," Simon said earnestly. "You are not boring
me, Sir Camaris- Not at all." He looked at Jeremias for
support, but his friend was goggle-eyed and silent.
"Please, tell me anything that will help me be a better
knight."

"Are you being kind?" asked the greatest knight in
Aedondom. His tone was cool.

762 Tad Williams

"No, sire." Simon laughed in spite of himself, and had
a momentary fear that he would dissolve into terrified
giggling. "No, sire. Forgive me, but to have you ask if
you're boring me ..." He could not summon words to de-
scribe the magnificent folly of such an idea. "You are a
hero. Sir Camaris," he said at last, simply. "A hero."

The old man rose with the same surprising alacrity with
which he had seated himself. Simon was afraid he had
somehow offended him.

"Stand, lad."

Simon did as he was told.

"You, too ... Jeremias." Simon's friend rose to the
knight's beckoning finger. Camaris looked at them both
critically. "Lend me your sword, please." He pointed to
the wooden blade still clutched in Simon's hand. "I have
left Thorn scabbarded in my tent. I am still not quite com-
fortable having her near me, I confess. There is a restless
quality to her that I do not like. Perhaps it is only me."

"Her?" Simon asked, surprised.

The old man made a dismissive gesture. "It is the way
we talk on Vinitta. Boats and swords are 'she,' storms and
mountains are 'he.' Now, attend me well." He took the
practice-sword and drew a circle in the wet grass. "The
Canon of Knighthood tells that, as we are made in the im-
age of our Lord, so is the world ..." He made a smaller
circle inside the first. ".. . made in the semblance of
Heaven. But, woefully, without its grace." He examined
the circle critically, as if he could already see it populated
with sinners.

"As the angels are the minions and messengers of God
the Highest," he went on, "so does the fraternity of
knighthood serve its various earthly rulers. The angels
bring forth God's good works, which are absolute, but the
earth is flawed, and so are our rulers, even the best- Thus,
there will be disagreement as to what is God's will. There
will be war." He divided the inner circle with a single
line. "By this test will the righteousness of our rulers be
made known. It is war that most closely reflects the knife
edge of God's will, since war is the hinge on which
earthly empires rise or fall- If strength alone were to de-

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

763

termine victory, strength unmitigated by honor or mercy,
then there would be no victory, because God's will can
never be revealed by the mere exercise of greater
strength. Is the cat more beloved of God than the
mouse?" Camaris shook his head gravely, then turned his
sharp eyes on his audience. "Are you listening?"

"Yes," Simon said quickly. Jeremias only nodded, still
silent as if struck dumb.

"So. All angels—excepting The One Who Fled—are
obedient to God above all, because He is perfect, all-
knowing and all-capable." Camaris drew a series of ticks
on the outer circle—representing the angels, Simon sup-
posed. In truth, he was a little bit confused, but he also
felt that he could grasp much of what the knight was say-
ing, so he clung to what he could and waited. "But," the
old man continued, "the rulers of men are, as aforesaid,
flawed. They are sinners, as are we all. Thus, although
each knight is loyal to his liege, he must also be loyal to
the Canon of Knighthood—all the rules of battle and
comportment, the rules of honor and mercy and
responsibility—which is the same for all knights."
Camaris bisected the line through the inner circle, draw-
ing a perpendicular. "So no matter which earthly ruler
wins a struggle, if his knights are true to their canon, the
battle will have been won according to God's law. It will
be a just reflection of His will." He fixed Simon with his
keen gaze. "Do you hear me?"

"Yes, sire." In truth, it did make a kind of sense, al-
though Simon wanted to think about it on his own for a
while-

"Good." Camaris bent and wiped the mud-daubed
wooden blade as carefully as if it had been Thorn, then
handed it back to Simon. "Now, just as God's priest must
render His will understandable to the people, in a form
that is pleasing and reverent, so, too, must His knights
prosecute His wishes in a similar fashion. That is why
war, however horrible, should not be a fight between an-
imals. That is why a knight is more than simply a strong
man on a horse. He is God's vicar on the battlefield.
Swordplay is prayer, lads—serious and sad, yet joyful."

764 Tad Williams

He doesn't look very joyful, Simon thought. But there is
something priestlike about him.

"And that is why one does not become a knight just by
the passing of a vigil and the tapping of a sword, any
more than one might become a priest by carrying the
Book of the Aedon from one side of a village to another.
There is study, study in every part." He turned to Simon.
"Stand and hold up your sword, young man."

Simon did. Camaris was a good handspan taller than
he, which was interesting. Simon had become accustomed
to being taller than nearly everyone.

"You are holding it like a club. Spread your hands,
thus." The knight's long hands enfolded Simon's own.
His fingers were dry and hard, as rough as if Camaris had
spent his life working the soil or building stone walls.
Abruptly, by his touch, Simon realized the enormity of
the old knight's experience, understood him as far more
than just a legend made flesh or an aged man full of use-
ful lore. He could feel the countless years of hard, pains-
taking work, the unnumberable and largely unwanted
contests of arms that this man had suffered to become the
mightiest knight of his age—and all the time, Simon
sensed, enjoying none of it any more than a kind-hearted
priest forced to denounce an ignorant sinner.

"Now feel it as you lift," said Camaris. "Feel how the
strength comes from your legs. No, you are off your bal-
ance." He pushed Simon's feet closer together. "Why
does a tower not fall? Because it is centered over its foun-
dation."

Soon he had Jeremias working, too, and working hard.

The afternoon sun seemed to move swiftly through the
sky; the breeze turned icy as evening approached. As the
old man put them through their rigorous paces, a certain
gleam—chill, but nevertheless bright—came to his eye.

Evening had descended by the time that Camaris fi-
nally turned them loose; the bowl of the valley was filled
with campfires. This day's work to bring everyone across
the river would enable the prince's company to leave with
the first light in the morning. Now the people of New

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER                           765

Gadrinsett were laying out their temporary camps, eating
belated suppers, or wandering aimlessly in the deepening
dark. A mood of stillness and anticipation hung over the
valley, as real as the twilight. It was a little like the Be-
tween World, Simon thought—the place before Heaven.

But it's also the place before Hell, Simon thought.
We're not just traveling—we're going to war . .. and
maybe worse,

He and Jeremias walked silently, flushed with exertion,
the sweat on their faces rapidly growing cold. Simon had
a soreness in his muscles that was pleasant now, but ex-
perience told him that it would be less pleasant tomorrow,
especially after a day on horseback. He was suddenly re-
minded of something.

"Jeremias, did you see to Homefinder?"

The young man looked at him in irritation. "Certainly.
I said I would, didn't I?"

"Well, I think I'm going to go have a look at her any-
way."

"Don't you trust me?" Jeremias asked.

"Of course I do," Simon said hastily. "It's nothing to
do with you, truly. What Sir Camaris said about a knight
and his horse just . . . jnst made me think about
Homefinder." He was also feeling an urge to be on his
own for a little while: other things Camaris had said
needed to be thought about as well. "You understand,
don't you?"

"I suppose so." Jeremias scowled, but didn't seem too
upset. "I'm going to go and find something to eat, my-
self."

"Meet me at Isgrimnur's fire later. I think Sangfugol is
going to sing some songs."

Jeremias continued on toward the busiest part of the
camp and the tent that he, Simon, and Binabik had erect-
ed that morning. Simon peeled off, heading for the hill-
slope where the horses were tethered.

The evening sky was a misty violet and the stars had
not yet appeared. As Simon picked his way across the
slushy meadowland in growing darlcness, he found him-
self wishing for a little moonlight. Once he slipped and

766 Tad Williams

fell, cursing loudly as he wiped the mud off his hands
onto his breeches, which were muddy and damp enough
after the long hours of swording. His boots had already
become thoroughly soaked.

A figure coming toward him through murk turned out
to be Freosel, returning from seeing to his own horse as
well as to Josua's Vinyafod. In this way, if no other;

Freosel had taken Deomoth's place in the prince's life,
and he seemed to fulfill the role admirably. The
Falshireman had told Simon once that he came from a
smithying family—something that Simon, looking at the
broad-shouldered Freosel, could readily believe.

"Greetings, Sir Seoman," he said. "See you didn't
bring torch either. If you don't be too long, y'may not
need it." He squinted upward, gauging the fast-
diminishing light. "But have a care—there be a great mud
pit half a hundred steps behind me."

"I already found one of those," Simon laughed, gestur-
ing to his mud-clotted boots.

Freosel looked at Simon's feet appraisingly. "Come by
my tent and I'll give you grease for 'em. Won't do to
have that leather crack. Or be you comin' to hear the
harper sing?"

"I think so."

"Then I'll bring it with." Freosel gave him a courtly
nod before walking on. "Mind that mud pit!" he called
back over his shoulder.

Simon kept his eyes open and managed to make his
way without incident around a patch of sucking slime that
was indeed a larger brother of the one with which he had
already made acquaintance. He could hear the gentle
whickering of the horses as he approached. They were
tethered on the hillside, a dark line against the dim sky.

Homefmder was where Jeremias had said he had left
her, staked to a longish rope not far from the twisted
black form of a spreading oak. Simon cupped the horse's
nose in his hand and felt her warm breath, then laid his
head on her neck and rubbed her shoulder. The horse
scent was thick and somehow reassuring.

TO   GftEEN   ANGEL   TOWER                           767

"You're my horse," he said quietly. Homefmder flicked
an ear. "My horse."

Jeremias had draped her with a heavy blanket—a gift
to Simon from Outrun and Vorzheva, one which had been
his own cover until the horses were moved from their
warm stables in Sesuad'ra's caves. Simon made sure that
it had been tied in place well but not too tightly. As he
turned from his inspection, he saw a pale shape flitting
through the darkness before him, passing through the
scatter of horses. Simon felt his heart jump within his
chest.

Noms ?

"Wh-who's that?" he called. He forced his voice lower
and shouted again. "Who's there? Come out'" He let his
hand fall to his side, realizing after a moment that he carr-
ied no weapon but his Qanuc knife, not even the wooden
practice sword.

"Simon?"

"Miriamele? Princess?" He took a few steps forward.
She was peering around at him from behind one of the
horses, as if she had been hiding. As he moved closer, she
moved out. There was nothing unusual in her dress, a pale
gown and a dark cloak, but she had an oddly defiant look
on her face.

"Are you well?" he asked, then cursed himself for the
stupid question. He was surprised to see her out here by
herself and couldn't think of anything to say. Another
time, he supposed, when it would have been better to say
nothing than to speak and prove himself a mooncalf.

But why did she look so guilty?

"I am, thank you." She looked past his shoulders on ei-
ther side as if trying to decide whether Simon was alone.
"I was out seeing to my horse." She indicated an undif-
ferentiated mass of shadowy shapes farther down the hill
"He's one of those we took from ... from the Nabbanai
nobleman I told you about."

"You startled me," Simon said, and laughed. "I thought
you were a ghost or ... or one of our enemies."

"1 am not an enemy," Miriamele said with a little of her

768 Tad Williams

usual lightness. "I'm not a ghost either, so far as I can
tell"

"That's good to know. Are you finished?"

"Finished ... with what?" Miriamele looked at him
with a strange intensity.

"Seeing to your horse. I thought you might ..." He
paused and started again. She seemed very uncomforta-
ble. He wondered if he had done something to offend her.
Offering her the White Arrow as a gift, perhaps. The
whole thing seemed dreamlike now. That had been a very
odd afternoon.

Simon started again. "Sangfugol and a few others are
going to play and sing tonight. At Duke Isgrimnur's tent."
He pointed down the hillside to the rings of glowing fires.
"Are you going to come and listen?"

Miriamele appeared to hesitate. "I'll come," she said at
last. "Yes, that would be nice." She smiled briefly. "As
long as Isgrimnur doesn't sing."

There was something not quite right in her tone, but Si-
mon laughed at the joke anyway, as much from nervous-
ness as anything else. "That will depend on whether any
of Fengbald's wine is left over, I'd guess."

"Fengbald." Miriamele made a noise of disgust. "And
to think that my father would have married me to that...
that pig...."

To distract her, Simon said: "He's going to sing a Jack
Mundwode tune—Sangfugol is, I mean. He promised me
he would. I think he's going to sing the one about the
Bishop's Wagons." He took her arm almost without think-
ing, then had a moment of apprehension. What was he
doing, grabbing her like that? Would she be insulted?

Instead, Miriamele seemed almost not to notice. "Yes,
that would be very nice," she said. "It would be good to
spend a night singing by the fire."

Simon was puzzled again, since something like that
had been going on most nights somewhere in New
Gadrinsett, and even more frequently of late, when people
had been gathered for the Raed. But he said nothing, de-
ciding just to enjoy the feeling of her slender, strong arm
beneath his.

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

769

"It will be a very good time," he said, and led her
down the hillside toward the beckoning campfires.

A

After midnight, when the mists had finally fallen away
and the moon was high in the sky, bright as a silver coin,
there was a stir of movement on the hilltop that the prince
and his company had so recently abandoned.

A trio of shapes, dark forms almost completely invisi-
ble despite the moonlight, stood near one of the standing
stones at the outermost edge of the hilltop and looked
down at the valley below. Most of the fires had burned
low, but still a perimeter of flickering flames lay around
the encampment; a few dim figures could be seen moving
in the reddish light.

The Talons of Utuk'ku watched the camp for a long,
long time, still as owls. At last. and without a word spo-
ken between them, they turned away and walked silently
through the high grasses, back toward the center of the
hill. The pale bulk of Sesuad'ra's ruined stone buildings
lay before them like the teeth in a crone's mouth.

The Norn Queen's servants had traveled far in a short
time. They could afford to wait for another night, a night
that would doubtless come soon, when the great, sham-
bling company beneath them was not quite so vigilant.

The three shadows slipped noiselessly into the building
the mortals called the Observatory, and stood for a long
time looking up through the cracked dome at the newly
emergent stars. Then they sat together on the stones. One
of them began very quietly to sing; what floated within
the crumbling chamber was a tune bloodless and sharp as
splintered bone.

Although the sound did not even make an echo in the
Observatory, and certainly could not have been heard
across the windy hilltop, some sleepers in the valley be-
low still moaned in their sleep. Those sensitive enough to
feel the song's touch—and Simon was one of them—
dreamed of ice, and of things broken and lost, and of
nests of twining serpents hidden in old wells.

26

A G^t jbr tfte Queen

A

Tfie prince^ company^ a slow-moving procession of
carts and animals and straggling walkers, left the valley
and edged out onto the plains, following the snaking
course of the Stefflod south. The fray-edged army took
close to a week to reach the place where the river joined
with its larger cousin, the Ymstrecca.

It was a homecoming of sons, for they made camp in
the hill-sheltered valley that had once been the site of the
first squatter town, Gadrinsett. Many of those who laid
down their bed rolls and scavenged for firewood in the
desolation of their former home wondered if they had
gained anything by leaving this place to throw in their lot
with Josua and his rebels. There was a little mutinous
whispering—but only a little. Too many remembered the
courage with which Josua and others had stood against
the High King's men.

It could have been a more bitter homecoming: the
weather was mild, and much of the snow that had once
blanketed this part of the grasslands had again melted
away. Still, the wind raced through the shallow gulleys
and bent the few small trees as it flattened the long grass,
and the campfires jigged and capered: the magical winter
had abated somewhat, but it was still nearly Decander on
the open plains of the Thrithings.

The prince announced that the great company would
rest there three nights while he and his advisers decided
what route would best serve them. His subjects, if they
could be called by such a name, seized eagerly at the days

TO   GREEN   ANOEL   TOWER

771

of rest. Even the short journey from Sesuad'ra had been
difficult for the wounded and infirm, who were many, and
for those with young children. Some passed rumors that
Josua had reconsidered, that he would rebuild New
Gadrinsett here on the site of its predecessor. Although
the more serious-minded tried to point out the foolishness
of leaving a protected high place for an unprotected low
one, and the fact that whatever else he might be. Prince
Josua was no fool, enough of the homeless army found
the idea a hopeful one that the rumors proved impossible
to quell.

A

"We can't stay here long, Josua," Isgrimnur said. "Ev-
ery day we remain will add another score of folk that
won't follow us when we go."

Josua was scrutinizing a tattered, sun-faded map. The
ragged prize had once belonged to the late Helfgrim, New
Gadrinsett's onetime Lord Mayor, who had become,
along with his martyred daughters, a sort of patron saint
of the squatters. "We will not stay long," the prince said.
"But if we bring these folk to the grasslands, away from
the river, we must be sure of finding water. The weather
is changing in ways none of us can foretell. It is quite
possible we will suddenly be without rain."

Isgrimnur made a noise of frustration and looked to
Freosel for support, but the young Falshireman, still un-
reconciled to Nabban as a destination, only stared back
defiantly. They could have followed the Ymstrecca all the
way west to Erkynland, his expression said clearly.
"Josua," the duke began, "finding water will not trouble
us. The animals can get theirs from dew if need be, and
we can fill a mountain of water bags from the rivers be-
fore we leave them—there are dozens of new streams just
sprung up from snowmelt, for that matter. Food is more
likely to be a problem."

"And that is not solved either," Josua pointed out. "But
1 don't see that our choice of routes will help us much
with that. We can pick our track to bring us near the

772 Tad Williams

lakes—I just don't know how much I trust Helfgnm's
map...."

"I had never . . . never realized how hard it is to feed
this many people." Strangyeard had been reading quietly
from one of the translations Binabik had made of
Ookequk's scrolis. "How do armies manage?"

"They either drain their king's purse dry, like sand
from a sackhole," Geloe said grimly, '"or they simply eat
everything around them as they pass through, like march-
ing ants." She stood up from where she had squatted by
the archivist. "There are many things growing here that
we can use to feed people, Josua—many herbs and flow-
ers and even grasses that will make sustaining meals, al-
though some who have only lived in cities might find
them strange."

" 'Strange becomes homely when people are hungry,' "
Isgrimnur quoted. "Don't remember who said it, but it's
true, sure enough. Listen to Geloe: we'l! make do- What
we need is haste. The longer we stay in any place, the
sooner we do what she said, eat the place up like ants.
We'll do better if we keep moving."

"We have not halted just so I can think about things,
Isgrimnur," the prince said a little coldly. "It is too much
to expect an entire city, which is what we are, to get up
and walk to Nabban in one march. The first week was a
hard one. Let us give them a little time to grow used to
it."

The Duke of Elvritshalla tugged at his beard. "I didn't
mean ... I know, Josua. But from now on, we need to
move quickly, as I said. Let those who are slow catch up
when we do Finally stop. They won't be the fighters, any-
way."

Josua pursed his lips. "Are they any the less God's
children because they cannot wield a sword for us?"

Isgrimnur shook his head. The prince was in one of
those moods. "That's not what I mean, Josua, and you
know it. I'm just saying that this is an army, not a reli-
gious procession with the lector walking at the back. We
can start whatever we have to do without waiting for ev-

[

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER                           773

ery last soul who pulls up lame, or every horse that
throws a shoe,"

Josua turned to Camaris, who sat quietly by the small
fire, staring intently at the smoke rising up to the hole in
the tent roof. "What do you think. Sir Camaris? You have
been on more marches than any of us, except perhaps for
Isgrimnur. Is he right?"

The old man slowly turned his gaze away from the
flickering fire. *T think that what Duke Isgrimnur says is
just, yes. We owe it to the people as a whole to do what
we have set out to do, and even more than that, we owe
it to our good Lord, who has heard our promises. And we
would be presumptuous to try to do God's work by hold-
ing the hand of every foot-weary traveler." He paused for
a moment. "However, we also wish—nay, need—the peo-
ple to join us. People do not join a hurrying, furtive band,
they join a triumphant army." He looked around the tent,
his eyes calm and clear. "We should go as swiftly as we
can while still maintaining our company in good order.
We should send riders out, not just to search what lies be-
fore us, but to be our heralds as well, to call to the peo-
ple: "The prince is coming!' " For a moment it seemed he
might say more, but his expression grew distant and he
fell silent.

Josua smiled. "You should have been an escritor, Sir
Camaris. You are as subtle as my old teachers, the
Usirean brothers. I have only one disagreement with
you." He pivoted slightly to include the others in the tent.
"We are going to Nabban. Our criers will shout: 'Camaris
has come back! Sir Camaris has returned to lead his peo-
ple!' " He laughed. " 'And Josua is with him.' "

Camaris frowned slightly, as if what the prince said
made him uneasy.

Isgrimnur nodded. "Camaris is right. Haste with dig-
nity."

"But dignity does not allow us to plunder inhabited
lands," Josua said. "That is not the way to gain the peo-
ple's hearts."

Isgrimnur shrugged; again, he thought the prince was
cutting the point too fine. "Our people are hungry, Josua.

774                   Tad Williams

They have been cast out, some of them living in the wild-
lands for almost two years. When we reach Nabban, how
will you tell them not to take the food they see growing
from the ground, the sheep they see grazing the hills?"

The prince squinted wearily at the map. "I have no
more answers. We will all do our best, and may God bless
us."

"May God have mercy on us," Camaris corrected him
in a hollow voice. The old man was again staring at the
rising smoke.

*

Night had fallen. Three shapes sat in a copse of trees
overlooking the valley. The music of the river rose up to
them, muted and fragile. They had no fire, but a blue-
white stone that lay between them glowed faintly, only a
little brighter than the moon. Its azure light painted their
pale, long-boned faces as they spoke quietly in the hissing
tongue of Stormspike.

"Tonight?" asked the one named Born-Beneath-
Tzaaihta's-Stone.

Vein-of-Silverfire made a finger-gesture of negation.
She laid her hand on the blue stone for a long moment
and sat in unmoving silence. At last, she let out a long-
held breath. "Tomorrow, when Mezhumeyru hides in the
clouds. Tonight, in this new place, the mortals will be
watchful. Tomorrow night." She looked meaningfully at
Born-Beneath-Tzaaihta's-Stone. He was the youngest,
and had never before left the deep caverns below
Nakkiga. She could tell by the tautness in his long, slen-
der fingers, the gleam in his purple eyes, that he would
bear watching. But he was brave, of that there was no
doubt. Anyone who had survived the endless apprentice-
ship in the Cavern of Rending would fear nothing except
the displeasure of their silver-masked mistress. Overea-
gemess, though, could be as harmful as cowardice.

"Look at them," said Called-by-the-Voices. She was
staring raptly at the few human figures visible in the en-

TO GREEN ANGF-L TOWER

775

campment below. "They are like rockworms, always
wriggling, always squirming."

"If your life were but a few seasons," Vein-of-
Silverfire replied, "perhaps you, too, would feel that you
could never pause." She stared down at the twinkling
constellation of fires. "You are right, though—they are
like rockworms." The line of her mouth hardened min-
utely. "They have dug and eaten and laid waste. Now we
will help put an end to them."

"By this one thing?" Called-by-the-Voices asked.

Vein-of-Silverfire looked at her, face cold and hard as
ivory. "Do you question?"

There was a moment of tight-stretched silence before
Called-by-the-Voices bared her teeth. "I seek only to do
as She wishes. I want only to do what will serve Her
best."

Bom-Beneath-Tzaaihta's-Stone made a musical sound
of pleasure. The moon reflected tombstone-white in his
eyes. "She wishes a death ... a special death," he said.
"That is our gift to Her."

"Yes." Vein-of-Silverfire picked up the stone and
placed it inside her raven-black shirt, next to her cool
skin. "That is the gift of the Talons. And tomorrow night,
we will give it to Her."

They fell silent, and did not speak again through the
long night.

*

"You are still thinking too much of yourself, Seoman."
Aditu leaned forward and pushed the polished stones into
a crescent that spanned the shore of the Gray Coast. The
shent-stones winked dully in the light of one of Aditu's
crystalline globes, which sat on a tripod of carved wood.
A little more light, this from the afternoon sun, leaked in
through the flap of Simon's tent.

"What does that mean? I don't understand."        »
Aditu looked from the board to Simon, her eyes sug|-
gesting a deep-hidden amusement. "You are too much Vjt
yourself, that is what I mean. You are not thinking abo||

776

Tad Williams

what your partner is thinking. Shent is a game played by
two."

"It's hard enough to try to remember the rules without
having to think as well," Simon complained. "Besides,
how am I supposed to know what you're thinking about
while we're playing? I never know what you're thinking
about!"

Aditu seemed poised to make one of her sly remarks,
but instead she paused and laid her hand flat over her
stones. "You are upset, Seoman. I have seen it in your
play—you play well enough now that your moods carry
over to the House of Shent."

She had not asked what was bothering him. Simon
guessed that even if a companion showed up with a leg
missing, Aditu or any other Sitha might wait while sev-
eral seasons passed without asking what had happened.
This evidence of what he thought of as her Sithi-ness ir-
ritated him, but he was also flattered that she thought he
was becoming good at shent—although she probably only
meant "good for a mortal," and since he was the only
mortal he'd ever heard of who played, that was a rather
lackluster compliment.

"I'm not upset." He glared down at the shent board.
"Maybe I am." he said at last. "But it's nothing you could
tell me anything about."

Aditu said nothing, but leaned back on her elbows and
stretched her long neck in her oddly-jointed way, then
shook her head. Pale hair fell loose from the pin that held
it and gathered around her shoulders like fog, one thin
braid coiling in front of her ear.

"I don't understand women." he said suddenly, then set
his mouth in a scowl as though Aditu might contradict
him. Evidently she agreed that he didn't, for she still said
nothing. "I just don't understand them."

"What do you mean, Seoman? Surely you understand
some things. I often say I do not understand mortals, but
I know what they look tike and how long they live, and
I can speak a few of their languages."

Simon looked at her in irritation. Was she playing with

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER

777

him again? "I suppose it's not all women." he said grudg-
ingly. "I don't understand Miriamele. The princess."

"The thin one with the yellow hair?"

She was playing with him. "If you like. But I can see
it's stupid to talk to you about it."

Aditu leaned forward and touched his arm. "I am sorry,
Seoman. I have made you angry. Tell me what is bother-
ing you, if you would like. Perhaps even if I know little
about mortals, speaking will make you feel happier."

He shrugged, embarrassed that he had brought it up. "I
don't know. She's kind to me sometimes. Then, other
times, she acts as if she hardly knows me. Sometimes she
looks at me like I frighten her. Me?" He laughed bitterly.
"I saved her life! Why should she be frightened of me?"

"If you saved her life, that is one possible reason."
Aditu was serious. "Ask my brother. Having your life
saved by someone is a very great responsibility."

"But Jiriki doesn't act like he hates me!"

"My brother is of an old and reserved race—although
among the Zida'ya, he and I are thought to be quite
youthfully impulsive and dangerously unpredictable." She
gifted him with a catlike smile; there might as well have
been a mouse tail-tip protruding from the comer of her
pretty mouth. "And no, he does not hate you—Jiriki
thinks very highly of you, Seoman Snowlock. He would
never have brought you to Jao e-Tinukai'i otherwise,
which confirmed in the minds of many of our folk that he
is not entirely trustworthy. But your Miriamele is a mortal
girl, and very young. There are fish in the river outside
that have lived longer than she has. Do not be surprised
that she finds owing someone her life to be a difficult
burden."

Simon stared at her. He had expected more teasing, but
Aditu was talking sensibly about Miriamele—and she was
telling him things about the Sithi he had never heard her
say. He was torn between two fascinating subjects.

"That's not all. At least, I don't think it is. I ... 1 don't
know how to be with her," he said finally. "With Princess
Miriamele. I mean, I think about her all the time. But who
am I to think about a princess?"

778                   Tad Williams

Aditu laughed, a sparkling sound like falling water.
"You are Seoman the Bold. You saw the Yasira You met
First Grandmother. What other young mortal can sa\
that?"

He felt himself blushing. "But that's not the point.
She's a princess, Aditu—the High King's daughter'"

"The daughter of your enemy? Is that why you are
troubled'"'" She seemed honestly puzzled.

"No." He shook his head. "No, no, no." He looked
around wildly, trying to think of a way to make her see.
"You are the daughter of the king and queen of the
Zida'ya, aren't you?"

"That is more or less how it would be said in your
speech. I am of the Year-Dancing House, yes."

"Well, what if someone who was from, I don't know,
an unimportant family—a bad house or something like
that—wanted to marry you?"

"A ... bad house?" Aditu looked at him carefully. "Do
you ask whether I would consider another of my folk to
be beneath me? We have long been too few for that,
Seoman. And why must you marry her? Do your people
never make love without being married?"

Simon was speechless for a moment. Make love to the
king's daughter without a thought of marrying her? "I am
a knight," he said stiffly. "I have to be honorable."

"Loving someone is not honorable?" She shook her
head, mocking smile now returned. "And you say you do
not understand me, Seoman!"

Simon rested his elbows on his knees and covered his
face with his hands. "You mean that your people don't
care who marries who? I don't believe it."

"That is what tore asunder the Zida'ya and Hikeda'ya,"
she said. When he looked up, her gold-flecked gaze had
become hard. "We have learned from that terrible lesson."

"What do you mean?"

"It was the death of Drukhi, the son of Utuk'ku and her
husband Ekimeniso Blackstaff, that drove the families
apart. Drukhi loved and married Nenais'u, the Nightin-
gale's daughter." She raised her hand and made a gesture
like a book being closed. "She was killed by mortals in

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER                           779

the years before Tumet'ai was swallowed by the ice. It
was an accident. She was dancing in the forest when a
mortal huntsman was drawn to the glimmer of her bright
dress. Thinking he saw a bird's plumage, he loosed an ar-
row. When her husband Drukhi found her, he went mad."
Aditu bent her head, as though it had happened only a
short while before.

After she had gone some moments without speaking,
Simon asked: "But how did that drive the families apart?
And what does that have to do with marrying whoever
you want?"

"It is a very long story, Seoman—perhaps the longest
that our people tell, excepting only the flight from the
Garden and our coming across the black seas to this
land." She pushed at one of the shent-stones with her fin-
ger. "At that time, Utuk'ku and her husband ruled all the
Gardenborn—they were the keepers of the Year-Dancing
groves. When their son fell in love with Nenais'u, daugh-
ter ofJenjiyana and her mate Initri, Utuk'ku furiously op-
posed it. Nenais'u's parents were of our Zida'ya
clan—although it had a different name in those long-ago
days. They were also of the belief that the mortals, who
had come to this land after the _Gardenbom had arrived,
should be permitted to live as they would, as long as they
did not make war on our people."

She made another, more intricate arrangement of the
stones on the board before her. "Utuk'ku and her clan felt
that the mortals should be pushed back across the ocean,
and that those who would not leave should be killed, as
some mortal farmers crush the insects they find on their
crops. But since the two great clans and the other smaller
clans allied with one or the other were so evenly divided,
even Utuk'ku's position as Mistress of Year-Dancing
House did not permit her to force her will on the rest. You
see, Seoman, we have never had 'kings' and 'queens' as
you mortals have.

"In any case, Utuk'ku and her husband were fiercely
angry that their son had married a woman of what they
considered to be the traitorous, mortal-loving clan that
opposed them. When Nenais'u was slain, Drukhi went

780 Tad Williams

mad and swore that he would kill every mortal he could
find- The men of Nenais'u's clan restrained him, although
they were, in their own way, as bitterly angry and horri-
fied as he. When the Yasira was called, the Gardenbom
could come to no decision, but enough feared what might
happen if Drukhi was free that they decided he must be
confined—something that had never happened this side of
the Ocean." He sighed. "It was too much for him, too
much for his madness, to be held prisoner by his own
people while those he deemed his wife's murderers went
free. Drukhi made himself die."

Simon was fascinated, although he could tell from
Aditu's expression how sad the story was to her. "Do you
mean he killed himself?"

"Not as you think of it, Seoman. No, rather Drukhi just
.., stopped living. When he was found lying dead in the
Si'injan'dre Cave, Utuk'ku and Ekimeniso took their clan
and went north, swearing that they would never again live
with Jenjiyana's people."

"But first everyone went to Sesuad'ra," he said. "They
went to Leavetaking House and they made their pact.
What I saw during my vigil in the Observatory."

She nodded. "From what you have said, I believe you
had a true vision of the past, yes."

"And that is why Utuk'ku and the Noms hate mor-
tals?" he asked.

"Yes. But they also went to war with some of the first
mortals in Hemystir, back long before Hern gave it the
name. In that fighting, Ekimeniso and many of the other
Hikeda'ya lost their lives. So they have other grudges to
nurse, as well."

Simon sat back, wrapping his arms about his knees. "I
didn't know. Morgenes or Binabik or someone told me
that the battle of the Knock was the first time that mortals
had killed Sithi."

"Sithi, yes—the Zida'ya. But Utuk'ku's people clashed
with mortals several times before the shipmen came from
over the western sea and changed everything." She low-
ered her head. "So you can see," Aditu finished, "why we
of the Dawn Children are careful not to say that someone

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER                           781

is above someone else. Those are words that mean trag-
edy to us."

He nodded. "I think I understand. But things are differ-
ent with us, Aditu. There are rules about who can marry
who ... and a princess can't marry a landless knight, es-
pecially one who used to be a kitchen boy."

"You have seen these rules? Are they kept in one of
your holy places?"

He made a face- "You know what I mean. You should
hear Camaris if you want to find out how things work. He
knows everything—who bows to who, who gets to wear
which colors on what day ..." Simon laughed ruefully.
"If I ever asked him about someone like me marrying the
princess, I think he'd cut my head off. But nicely. And he
wouldn't enjoy doing it."

"Ah, yes, Camaris." Aditu seemed to be about to say
something significant. "He is a ... strange man. He has
seen many things, I think."

Simon looked at her carefully but could not discern any
particular meaning behind her words. "He has. And I
mink he means to teach them all to me before we reach
Nabban. Still, that's nothing to complain about." He stood
up. "As a matter of fact, it's going to be dark before too
long, so I should go and see him.'There was something he
wanted to show me about using a shield . . ." Simon
paused. "Thank you for talking to me, Aditu."

She nodded. "I do not think I have said anything to
help you, but I hope you will not be so sad, Seoman."

He shrugged as he swept his cloak up from the floor.

"Hold," she said, rising. "I will come with you."

"To see Camaris?"

"No. I have another errand. But I will walk with you
down to where our paths part."

She followed him out through the tent flap. Untouched,
the crystal globe flickered and dimmed, then went dark.

*

"So?" asked Duchess Outrun. Miriamele could clearly
hear the fear beneath her impatient tone.

782 Tad Williams

Geloe stood. She squeezed Vorzheva's hand for a mo-
ment, then set it down atop the blanket. "It is nothing too
bad," the witch woman said. "A little blood, that is all,
and stopped now. You .have had your own children,
Gutmn, and grandmothered many more. You should know
better than to fret her this way."

The duchess set her chin defiantly. "I have had and
raised my own children, yes, which is more than some
can say." When Geloe did not even raise an eyebrow at
this sally, Gutrun continued with only a little less heat.
"But I never bore any of my children on horseback, and
I swear that is what her husband means for her to do!"
She looked to Miriamele as though for support, but her
would-be ally only shrugged. There was little point in ar-
guing now—the deed was done. The prince had chosen to
go to Nabban.

"I can ride in the wagon," Vorzheva said. "By the
Grass-Thunderer, Gutrun. the women of my clan ride on
horses sometimes until their last moon!"

"Then the other women of your clan are fools," Geloe
said dryly, "even if you are not. Yes, you can ride in a
wagon. That should not be too bad on open grassland."
She turned to Gutrun. "As for Josua, you know he is
doing what seems best. I agree with him. It is harsh, but
he cannot halt everybody for a hundred days so his wife
can bear their child in peace and quiet."

"Then there should be some other way to do things. I
told Isgrimnur that it was cruelty, and I meant it. I told
him to tell Prince Josua as well. I don't care what the
prince thinks of me, I can't bear to see Vorzheva suffer
this way."

Geloe's smile was grim. "1 am sure your husband lis-
tened to you carefully, Gutrun, but I doubt that Josua will
ever hear it."

"What do you mean?" the duchess demanded.

Before the forest woman could reply—although
Miriamele thought she looked in no hurry to do so—there
was a soft noise at the door of the tent. The flap slid back,
revealing for the merest instant a spatter of stars, then Ad-

TO GRhl [^  AN(;i ]   lOV.iK                    -;?,t,

itu's lithe form slipped through and the cloth fell back
into place.

"Do I intrude?" the Sitha asked. Oddly. Minameie
thought that she sounded as though she meant it. To a
young woman raised on the false politeness of her fa-
ther's court, it was strange to hear someone asking that as
though they wanted an answer. "I heard you were ill,
Vorzheva."

"I am better," said Josua's wife, smiling. "Come in.
Aditu, you are very welcome here."

The Sitha sat on the floor near Vorzheva's bed, her
golden eyes intent on the sick woman, her long, graceful
hands folded in her lap. Miriamele could not help staring.
Unlike Simon, who seemed quite accustomed to the Sithi,
she had not yet grown used to having such a foreign crea-
ture among them- Aditu seemed as strange as something
from an old story, but stranger still because she was sit-
ting right here in the dim rushlight, as real as a stone or
a tree. It was as though the past year had turned the entire
world upside down, and all the hidden things remembered
only in legends had come tumbling out.

Aditu pulled a pouch from her gray tunic and held it
up. "I have brought something to help you sleep." She
spilled a small cluster of green leaves into her palm, then
showed them to Geloe, who nodded. "I will brew them
for you while we talk."

The Sitha appeared not to notice Gutrun's disgruntled
stare. Using a pair of sticks, Aditu levered a hot stone
from the fire, knocked off the ashes, then dropped it into
a bowl of water. When a cloud of steam hung over it, she
crumbled in the leaves. "I am told we will remain here
one more day. That will give you a chance to rest, Vorz-
heva."

"I do not know why everyone is so frightened for me.
It is only a child. Women bear children every day."

"Not the prince's only child," Miriamele said quietly.
"Not in the middle of a war."

Aditu was using the hot stone to further crush the
leaves, pushing it about with a stick. "You and your mate
will have a healthy child, I am sure," she said. To

784 Tad Williams

Miriamele, it sounded incongruously like the kind of
thing a mortal might have said—polite, cheerful. Maybe
Simon was right after all.

When the stone was removed, Vorzheva sat up to take
the bowl, which still steamed. She took a small sip.
Miriamele watched the muscles in the Thrithings-
woman's pale neck move as she swallowed.

She's so lovely, Miriamele thought.

Vorzheva's eyes were huge and dark, though heavy-
lidded with fatigue; her hair was a thick black cloud
about her head. Miriamele's fingers crept up to her own
shorn locks and felt the ragged ends where the dyed hair
had been cut off. She could not help feeling like an ugly
little sister.

Be still, she told herself angrily. You're as pretty as you
need to be. What more do you want—do you need?

But it was hard to be in the same room with boldly
beautiful Vorzheva and the feline, graceful Sitha and not
feel a little frowsy.

But Simon likes me. She almost smiled. He does, I can
fell. Her mood soured. But what does it matter? He can't
do what I have to do. And he doesn't know anything about
me, anyway.

It was strange, though, to think that the Simon who had
pledged her his service—it had been a strange and painful
moment, but sweet, too—was the same person as the gan-
gling boy who had accompanied her to Naglimund. Not
that he had changed so much, but what had changed . ..
He was older. Not just his height, not just the fuzzy beard,
but in his eyes and in the way he stood. He would be a
handsome man, she now saw—something she would
never have said when they stopped in Oeloe's forest
house. His prominent nose, his long-boned face, had
gained something in the intervening months, a rightness
that they hadn't had before.

What was it that one of her nurses had said once of an-
other Hayholt child? "He has to grow into that face."
Well, that was definitely true of Simon. And he was doing
just that.

Little surprise, though, she supposed. He had done so

TO GREEN ANGE1 TOWER               -ygc

many things since leaving the Hayhott—why, he was al-
most a hero! He had faced a dragon! What had Sir
Camaris or Tallistro ever done that was braver? And al-
though Simon played down his meeting with the ice-
worm—while at the same time, Miriamele had seen, he
was dying to boast a little—he had also stood at her side
when a giant had charged. She had seen his bravery then.
Neither of them had run, so she was brave, too. Simon
was indeed a good companion ... and now he was her
protector.

Miriamele felt warm and strangely fluttery, as though
something swift-winged moved inside of her. She tried to
harden herself against it, against any such feelings. This
was not the time. This was definitely not the time—and
soon there might not be time for anything....

Aditu's quietly musical voice pulled her back to the
tent and the people who surrounded her. "If you have
done all that you wished to do for Vorzheva." the Sitha
was saying to Geloe, "I would like to have your company
for a little while. I wish to speak to you of something."

Outrun made a""rumbling noise, which Miriamele
guessed was meant to convey the duchess' impression of
people who would go off and tell -secrets. Geloe either ig-
nored or did not hear her wordless comment, and said: "I
think what she needs now is sleep, or at least some quiet."
Now she turned at last to Outrun. "I will look in on her
later."

"As you wish," said the duchess.

The witch woman nodded to Vorzheva, then to
Miriamele, before following Aditu out of the tent. The
Thrithings-woman, who was lying back now, raised her
hand in farewell. Her eyes were almost closed. She ap-
peared to be falling asleep.

The tent was silent for some moments except for the
tuneless humming of Outrun as she sewed, which contin-
ued even as she held the cloth close to the fire to examine
her stitchery. At last, Miriamele stood up.

"Vorzheva is tired. I will leave, too." She leaned for-
ward and took the Thri things-woman's hand. Her eyes
opened; it took them a moment to fix on Miriamele.

786 Tad Williams

"Good night. I'm sure it will be a fine baby, one that will
make you and Uncle Josua very proud."

"Thank you." Vorzheva smiled and closed her long-
lashed eyes again.

"Good night, Auntie Gutrun," Miriamele said. "I'm
glad you were here when I came back from the south. I
missed you." She kissed the duchess' warm cheek, then
delicately untangled herself from Gutrun's motherly em-
brace and slipped out through the door.

"I haven't heard her call me that for years!" Miriamele
heard Gutrun say in surprise. Vorzheva mumbled some-
thing sleepily. "The poor child seems so quiet and sad
these days," Gutrun went on. "But then again, why
shouldn't she.. . ?"

Miriamele, walking away through the wet grass, did
not hear the rest of what the duchess had to say.

A

Aditu and Geloe walked beside the whispering
Stefflod. The moon was covered in a net of clouds, but
stars glinted higher up in the blackness. A soft breeze was
blowing from the east, carrying the scent of grass and wet
stones.

"It is strange, what you say, Aditu." The witch woman
and the Sitha made a peculiar pair, the immortal's loose-
limbed stride reined in to match Geloe's more stalwart
tread. "But I do not think there is harm in it."

"I do not say that there is, only that it bears thinking
about." The Sitha laughed hissingly. "To think that I have
grown so embroiled in the doings of mortals' Mother's
brother Khendraja'aro would grind his teeth."

"These mortal concerns are your family's concerns, at
least in part," Geloe said matter-of-factly. "Otherwise,
you would not be here."

"I know that," agreed Aditu. "But many of my people
will walk a long way around to find some other reason for
what we do than anything that smacks of mortals and
their affairs." She leaned down and plucked a few blades
of grass, then held them to her nose and sniffed. "The

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

grass here is different than that which grows in the forest,
or even on Sesuad'ra. It is ... younger. I cannot feel as
much life in it, but it is sweet for all that." She let the
loose blades flutter to the ground. "But I have let my
words wander. Geloe, I do not see any harm in Camaris
at all, except that in him which would harm himself. But
it is odd that he keeps his past a secret, and odder still
when there are so many things he might know that could
aid his people in this struggle."

"He will not be pushed," said Geloe. "If he tells his se-
crets, it will be in his own time, that is clear. We have all
tried." She shoved her hands into the pocket of her heavy
tunic. "Still, though, I cannot help being curious. Are you
sure?"

"No," Aditu said thoughtfully. "Not sure. But an odd
thing Jiriki told me has been at the back of my thoughts
for some time. We both, he and I, thought that Seoman
was the first mortal to set foot in Jao e-Tinukai'i. Cer-
tainly that is what my father and mother thought. But
Jiriki told me that when Amerasu met Seoman she said
that he was not the first. I have long wondered about that,
but First Grandmother knew the history of the Garden-
bom better than anyone—perhaps even better than silver-
faced Utuk'ku, who has long brooded on the past, but
never made its study an art, as Amerasu did."

"But I still don't know why you think the first might
have been Camaris."

"In the beginning it was only a sense I had." Aditu
turned and wandered down the bank toward the soft-
singing river. "Something in the way he looked at me,
even before he recovered his wits. I caught him staring at
me several times when he did not think I was looking.
Later, when his sense had returned, he continued to watch
me—not slyly, but like someone who remembers some-
thing painful."

"That could have been anything—a resemblance to
someone." Geloe frowned. "Or perhaps he was feeling
shame over the way his friend John, the High King,
hunted your people."

"John's persecution of the Zida'ya occurred almost en-

788 Tad Williams

tirely before Camaris came to the court, from what the ar-
chivist Strangyeard has told me." Aditu replied. "Don't
stare!" she laughed. "I am curious about many things, and
we Dawn Children have never been afraid of inquiry or
scholarship, although we would not use either of those
words."

"Still, there could be many reasons Camaris stared.
You are not a common sight, Aditu no-Sa'onserei—at
least not for mortals."

"True. But there is more. One night, before his memory
was returned, I was walking by the Observatory, as you
named it—and I saw him walking slowly toward me. I
nodded, but he seemed absorbed in his shadow-world.
I was singing a song—a very old song from Jhina-
T'senei, a favorite of Amerasu's—and as I passed him,
Geloe, I saw that his lips were moving." She stopped and
squatted by the riverside, but looked up at the forest
woman with eyes that even in the darkness seemed to
glimmer like amber coals. "He was mouthing the words
to the same song."

"Are you sure?"

"As certain as I am that the trees in the Grove are alive
and will blossom again, and I feel that in my blood and
heart. Amerasu's song was known to him, and although
he still wore his faraway look, he was singing silently
along with me. A playful song that First Grandmother
used to sing. It is not the sort of tune that is sung in the
cities of mortal men, or even in the oldest sacred grove in
Hemystir."

"But what could it mean?" Geloe stood over Aditu,
looking out across the river. The wind slowly shifted di-
rection, blowing now from behind the encampment that
lay just uphill. The normally imperturbable forest woman
seemed faintly agitated. "Even if Camaris somehow knew
Amerasu, what could it mean?"

"I do not know. But considering that Camaris' horn
was once our enemy's, and that our enemy was also
Amerasu's son—and once the greatest of my people—I
feel a need to know. It is also true that the sword of this
knight is very important to us." She made what was, for

TO   (.iKl-F-f.   ANCiM    TOW! R                             789

a Sitha. an unhappy face. a faint thinning of the lips. "If
only Amerasu had lived to tell us her suspicions."

Geloe shook her head. "We have been laboring in shad-
ows too long. Well. what can we do?"

"I have approached him. He does not wish to talk to
me. although he is polite. When 1 tr> to guide him toward
the subject, he pretends to misunderstand, or simpi;

pleads some other necessity, then leaves." Aditu rose
from the grass beside the river. "Perhaps Prince Josua can
compel him to talk. Or Isgrimnur. who seems the nearest
thing to a friend Camaris has. You know them both,
Geloe. They are suspicious of me, for which-'l do not
blame them—many mortal generations have passed since
we could consider the Sudhoda'ya to be our allies. Per-
haps at your urging, one of them may convince Camaris
to tell us whether it is true that he was in Jao e-Tinukai'i,
and what it might mean."

"I will try," promised Geloe. "I am to see the two of
them later tonight. But even if they can convince
Camaris, I am not sure there will be any value in what he
has to say."

She ran her thick fingers through her hair. "Still, we
have learned precious little else that is of use lately." She
looked up. "Aditu? What is it?"

The Sitha had gone rigid, and stood with her head
cocked in a most unhuman way.

"Aditu?" Geloe said again. "Are we attacked?"

" Kei-vishaa," Aditu hissed. "I smell it!"

"What?"

"Kei-vishaa. It is ... there is no time to explain. It is
a smell that should not be in the air here. Something bad
is happening. Follow me, Geloe—I am suddenly fearful!"

Aditu sprang away up the river bank, swift as a flushed
deer. Within a moment she had vanished into the dark-
ness, heading back toward the encampment. Following
her, the witch woman ran a few more paces, muttering
words of worry and anger. As she passed into the shadow
of a congregation of willows that grew on a hill over-
looking the streambank, there was a convulsive move-
ment; the faint starlight seemed to bend, the darkness to

790                   Tad Williams

coalesce and then burst outward. Geloe, or at least
Geloe's shape, did not reemerge from the tree-shadows,
but a winged form did.

Yellow eyes wide in the moonlight, the owl flew in
pursuit of swift Aditu, following the whisper-faint mark
of her passage across the wet grass.

*

Simon had been restless all evening. Talking with
Aditu had helped, but only a little. In a way, it had made
him even more unsettled.

He desperately wanted to speak with Miriam&le. He
thought about her all the time—at night when he wanted
just to fall asleep, during the day whenever he saw a girl's
face or heard a woman's voice, at odd moments when he
should be thinking of other things. It was strange how she
had come to mean so much to him in the short time since
she had returned: the smallest change in the way she
treated him stayed in his mind for days.

She had seemed so strange when he had met her by the
horses the night before. And yet, when she had accompa-
nied him to Isgrimnur's fire to hear the singing, she had
been kind and friendly, if a little distracted. But now she
had avoided him all day today—or at least so it seemed,
for everywhere he looked for her he was told that she was
somewhere else, until it began to feel as though she was
staying a step ahead of him on purpose.

The twilight had gone and darkness had settled in tike
a great black bird folding its wings. His visit with
Camaris had been brief—the old man had seemed fully as
preoccupied as he was, barely able to fix his attention on
explaining the rank of battle and the rules of engagement.
To Simon, consumed with worries more heated and more
current, the knight's litany of rules had seemed dry and
pointless. He had made excuses and departed early, leav-
ing the old man sitting by the fire in his sparsely-
furnished campsite. Camaris seemed just as happy to be
left alone.

After a fruitless exploration of the camp, Simon had

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

791

looked in on Vorzheva and Outrun. Miriamele had been
there, the duchess said—whispering so as not to wake the
prince's sleeping wife—but had left some time before.
Unrewarded, Simon had returned to his search.

Now, as he stood at the outer edge of the field of tents,
at the beginnings of the wide halo of fires that marked the
camps of those members of Josua's company to whom a
tent was, at this moment, an unimaginable luxury, Simon
puzzled over where Miriamele might be. He had walked
along the riverbank earlier, thinking that she might be
there keeping company with her thoughts by the water,
but there had been no sign of her, only a few New
Gadrinsett folk with torches, night-fishing with what ap-
peared to be little success.

Maybe she's seeing to her horse, he thought suddenly.

That was, after all, where he had found her the night
before, not too much earlier in the evening than it was
now. Perhaps she found it a quiet place after everyone
else had gone down to supper. He turned and headed for
the dark hillside.

He stopped first to say hello to Homefinder, who re-
ceived his greeting with a certain aloofness before conde-
scending to snuffle at his ear,-then he headed uphill
toward the spot where the princess had said her horse was
picketed. There was indeed a shadowy figure moving
there. Pleased with his own cleverness, he stepped for-
ward.

"Miriamele?"

The hooded figure started, then whirled. For a moment
he could see nothing but a smear of pallid face in the
depths of the hood.

"S-Simon?" It was a shocked, fearful voice—but it
was her voice. "What are you doing here?"

"I was looking for you." The way she spoke alarmed
him. "Are you well?" This time the question seemed tre-
mendously appropriate.

"I am ..." She moaned. "Oh, why did you come?"

"What's wrong?" He took a few paces toward her.
"Have you... ?" He stopped.

Even in the moonlight, he could see that the silhouette

792 Tad Williams

of her horse seemed somehow wrong- Simon put out his
hand and touched the bulging saddlebags.

"You're going somewhere . . ." he said wonderingly.
"You're running away."

"I am not running away." The earlier tone of fear gave
way to pain and fury. "I am not. Now leave me alone, Si-
mon."

"Where are you going?" He was caught up in the
strange dreaminess of it—the dark hillside with its few
lonely trees, Miriamele's hooded face. "Is it me? Did I
make you angry?"

Her laugh was bitter. "No, Simon, it's not you." Her
voice softened. "You have done nothing wrong. You have
been a friend when I didn't deserve one. I can't tell you
where I'm going—and please wait until tomorrow to tell
Josua you've seen me. Please. I beg this of you."

"But ... but I can't!" How could he tell Josua that he
had stood by and watched as the prince's niece had ridden
away by herself? He tried to slow his excited heart and
think. "I will go with you," he said finally.

"What!?" Miriamele was astonished. "You can't!"

"I can't let you go off by yourself, either. I am your
sworn protector, Miriameie."

She seemed on the verge of crying. "But I don't want
you to go, Simon. You are my friend—I don't want you
hurt!"

"And I don't want you hurt, either." He felt calmer
now. He had a strange but powerful feeling that this was
the right decision ... although another part of him was
simultaneousy crying mooncalf, mooncalf? "That's why
I'm going with you."

"But Josua needs you!"

"Josua has lots of knights, and I'm the least of them.
You only have one."

"I can't let you, Simon." She shook her head violently.
"You don't understand what I'm doing, where I'm go-
ing. ..."

"Then tell me."

She shook her head again.

"Then I'll just have to find out by going with you. Ei-

TO   GRLhN   ANGEL   TOWfcR                           793

ther you take me, or you stay. I'm sorry, Mmamele. but
that is all."

She looked at him for a moment, staring hard, as
though she would see into his very heart. She seemed to
be in a kind of ecstasy of indecision, pulling distractedly
at her horse's bridle until Simon feared the animal might
startle and bolt. "Very well," she said at last. "Oh, Elysia
save us all, very well! But we must go now, and you must
ask me no more questions about where or why tonight."

"Fine," he said. The doubting part of him was still
screaming for attention, but he had decided not to listen.
He could not bear the idea of her riding away into the
dark alone. "But I must go and get my sword and a few
other things. Do you have food?"

"Enough for me ... but you dare not try to steal more,
Simon. There's too much chance someone would see
you."

"Well, we'll worry about it later, then But I must have
a sword, and I must leave something to explain. Did
you?"

She stared at him. "Are you mad?"

"Not to say where you're going, but just to tell them
that you're gone of your^own will. We have to,
Miriamele," he explained firmly. "It's cruel, otherwise.
They'll think we were kidnapped by the Noms, or that
we've, we've ..." he smiled as the thought came, "...
we've run away to be married, like in the Mundwode
song."

Her look turned calculating. "Very well, get your sword
and leave a note."

Simon frowned. "I'm off. But remember, Miriamele, if
you aren't here when I get back, I'll have Josua and every
man of New Gadrinsett after 'you tonight."

She jutted her chin defiantly. "Go on, then. I want to
ride until dawn and be well away, so hurry."

He threw her a mock-bow, then turned and ran down
the hillside.

It was strange, but when Simon thought of that night
later, during moments of terrible pain, he could no longer

794

Tad Williams

remember how he had felt as he hastened toward the
camp—as he had prepared to steal off with the king's
daughter, Miriamele. The memory of all that came after-
ward crowded out what had throbbed in him as he pelted
down the hill.

On that night he felt all the world singing about him,
all the stars hanging close and attentive above. As Simon
ran, the world seemed poised on some vast fulcrum, tee-
tering, and every possibility was both beautiful and terri-
ble. It seemed for all the world as though the dragon
Igjarjuk's molten blood had come alive in him again,
opening him up to the vast sky, filling him with the pulse
of the earth.

He dashed through the encampment with hardly a
glance for any of the night life that surrounded him, hear-
ing none of the voices that were raised in song or laughter
or argument, seeing nothing but the twisting track through
the tents and small camps toward his own sleeping

place.

Happily for Simon, as it seemed, Binabik was away
from the tent. He had not given a moment's thought to
what he would have done if the little man had been wait-
ing for him—he might have been able to come up with
some practical reason for needing his sword, but could
certainly not have left a note. Fumble-fingered with hurry,
he ransacked the tent for something to write on, and at
last found one of the scrolls Binabik had brought from
Ookequk's cave in the Trollfells. With a bit of charcoal
plucked from the cold firepit, he laboriously scrawled his
message on the back of the sheep-leather.

"Mirimel has gon away and I hav gon after Her."
He wrote, tongue gripped between his teeth.

"We will be well. Tell Prince Josua I am sory but
I hav to go. I will bring Her bak soon as I can.
Tell Josua I am a bad knigt but I am tring to do
wat is the best thing. Your frend Simon."

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWfcR

795

He thought for a moment, then added:

" You can hav my things if I dont cum bak. I am
sory."

He left the note on Binabik's bedroll, grabbed his sword
and scabbard and a few other necessities, then left the tent.
At the doorway he hesitated for a moment, recalling his sack
of beloved treasures, the White Arrow, Jiriki's mirror. He
turned and went to retrieve it, although every moment he
kept her waiting—she would wait; she must wait—felt like
an hour. He had told Binabik he could have them, but
Miriamele's earlier words returned to him. They were en-
trusted; they were promises. He could not give them away
any more than he could give away his name, and there was
not time now to sort out the things that could safely be left
behind. He dared not even take the time to think or he knew
that he would lose courage.

We will be alone together, just us two, he kept thinking
in wonderment. / will be her protector!

It took him what seemed an agonizingly long time to
find the sack where he had hidden it in a hole under a flap
of sod. With sack and scabbard clutched under his arm,
his worn saddle over his shoulder-—he winced at the noise
the harness buckles made—he ran as quickly as he could
back through the camp to where the horses were tied, to
where Miriamele—he prayed—was waiting.

She was there. Seeing her impatiently pacing, he felt a
moment of giddiness. She had waited for him!

"Hurry up, Simon! The night is slipping away!" She
seemed to feel none of his pleasure, but only a sense of
frustration, a terrible need to be moving.

With Homefinder saddled and Simon's few belongings
hastily pushed into the saddlebags, they were soon lead-
ing the horses up toward the hilltop, moving silently as
spirits through the damp grass. They turned for a last look
down at the glowing quilt of campfires spread in the river
valley.

"Look!" Simon said, startled. "That's no cookfire!" He

1ad Williams

pointed to a targe, moving billow of orange-red flame
near the middle of the encampment. "Someone's tent is
on fire!"

"I hope no harm comes to them, but at least it will keep
people busy until we arc awa;," said Miriamele grim!).
"We must ride. Simon."

Suiting action to words, she clambered deftly into the
saddle—she was once more wearing the breeches and
shirt of a man beneath her heavy cloak—and led him
down the hill's far side.

He took one last look back at the lights, then urged
Homefinder after her, into shadows that even the emer-
gent moon could not pierce.

PEOPLE

ERKTNLANDERS

Bamabas—Hayholt chapel sexton

Deomoth, Sir—of Hewenshire, Josua's knight

Eahlferend—Simon's fisherman father

Eahlstan Fiskeme—"Fisher King," founder of League of

Scroll
Ebekah, also known as Efiathe of Hemysadharc—Queen

of Erkynland, John's wife, mother of EUas and Josua
Elias—High King, John's oldest son, Josua's brother
Fengbald—Earl of Falshire, High King's Hand
Freobeom—Freosel's father, a blacksmith of Falshire
Freosel—Falshireman, constable of New Gadrinsett
Guthwulf—Earl of Utanyeat
Heanwig—old drunkard in Stanshire
Helfgrim—Lord Mayor of Gadrinsett (former)

798

Tad Williams

Inch—foundry master

Isaak—Fengbald's page

Jack Mundwode—mythical forest bandit

Jeremias—former chandler's apprentice, Simon's friend

John—King John Presbyter, High King, also known as

"Prester John"

Judith—Hayholt Mistress of Kitchens
Leieth—Geloe's companion, once Miriamele's handmaid
Maefwaru—a Fire Dancer
Miriamele—Princess, Elias' daughter
Morgenes, Doctor—Scrollbearer, Simon's friend and

mentor

Old Bent Legs—forge worker in Hayholt
Osgal—one of Mundwode's mythical band
Rachel—Hayholt Mistress of Chambermaids, also known

as "The Dragon"
Roelstan—escaped Fire Dancer
Sangfugol—Josua's harper

Sceldwine—captain of the prisoned Erkynguardsmen
Shem Horsegroom—Hayholt groom
Simon—castle scullion (named "Seoman" at birth)
Stanhelm—forge worker

Strangyeard, Father—Scrollbearer, priest, Josua's archi-
vist

Towser—King John's jester (original name "Cruinh")
Ulca—girl on Sesuad'ra, called "Curly Hair"
Welma—girl on Sesuad'ra, called "Thin One"
Wiclaf—former First Hammerman killed by Fire Dancers
Zebediah—a Hayholt scullion, called "Fat Zebediah"

HERNTSTIRI

Airgad Oakheart—famous Hernystiri hero
Amoran—minstrel
Bagba—cattle god
Brynioch of the Skies—sky god
Bulychlinn—fisherman in old story who caught a demon
in his nets

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWhR

799

Cadrach-ec-Crannhyr—monk of indeterminate Order,
also known as "Padreic"

Caihwye—young mother

Craobhan—called "Old," adviser to Hernystiri royal
house

Croich, House—a Hernystiri clan

Cuamh Earthdog—earth god

Deanagha of the Brown Eyes—Hernystiri goddess,
daughter of Rhynn

Diawen—scryer

Earb, House—a Hernystiri clan

Eoin-ec-Cluias—legendary Hernystiri harper

Eolair—Count of Nad Mullach

Feurgha—Hernystiri woman, captive of Fengbald

Frethis of Cuihmne—Hernystiri scholar

Gullaighn—escaped Fire Dancer

Gwynna—Eolair's cousin and castellaine

Gwythinn—Maegwin's brother. Lluth's son

Hern—founder of Hemystir

Inahwen—Lluth's third wife

Lach, House—a Hernystiri clan

Lluth—King, father of Maegwin and Gwythinn

Llythinn—King, Lluth's father, uncle of John's wife
Ebekah

Maegwin—Princess, daughter of Lluth

Mathan—goddess of household, wife of Murhagh One-
Arm

Mircha—rain goddess, wife of Brynioch

Murhagh One-Arm—war god, husband of Mathan

Penemhwye—Maegwin's mother, Lluth's first wife

Rhynn of the Cauldron—a god

Siadreth—Caihwye's infant son

Sinnach—prince of Hemystir, also known as "The Red
Fox"

Tethtain—former master of the Hayholt, "Holly King"

8oo
RIMMERSMEN

Tad Williams

Dror—storm god

Dypnir—one of Ule's band

Einskaldir—Isgrimnur's man, killed in forest

Elvrit—first Osten Ard king of Rimmersmen

Fingil Bloodfist—first human master of Hayholt, "Bloody,

King"

Frekke Grayhair—Isgrimnur's man, killed at Naglimund
Outrun—Duchess, Isgrimnur's wife
Hengfisk—Hoderundian priest, Ellas* cupbearer
Hjeldin—Fingil's son, "Mad King"
Ikferdig—third Hayholt ruler, "Burned King"
Isgrimnur—Duke of Elvritshalla, Gutrun's husband
Isom—son of Isgrimnur and Outrun
Jamauga—Scrollbearer, killed at Naglimund
Nisse—(Nisses) author of Du Svardenvyrd
Skali—Thane of Kaldskryke, called "Sharp-nose"
Sludig—Isgrimnur's man
Trestolt—Jamauga's father

Ule Frekkeson—leader of renegade band of Rimmers-
men, son of Frekke

NABBANAI

Aspitis Preves—Earl of Drina and Eadne
Benigaris—Duke of Nabban, son of Leobardis and

Nessalanta
Benidrivis—first duke under John, father of Camaris and

Leobardis

Brindalles—Seriddan's brother
Camaris-sa-Vinitta, Sir—John's greatest knight, also

known as "Camaris Benidrivis"
Dinivan—Scrollbearer, secretary to Lector Ranessin,

killed in Sancellan Aedonids

Domitis—bishop of Saint Sutrin's cathedral in Erchester
Eneppa—Metessan kitchen woman, once called "Fuiri"
Elysia—mother of Usires Aedon, called "Mother of God"

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER 801

Fluiren, Sir—knight of Sulian House, member of John's

Great Table
Gavanaxes—knight of Honsa Claves (Clavean House) for

whom Camaris was squire
Hylissa—Miriamele's mother, Elias' wife, killed in

Thri things

Lavennin, Saint—patron saint of Spenit Island
Leobardis—Duke of Nabban, killed at Naglimund
Metessan House—Nabbanai noble house, blue crane em-
blem

Munshazou—Pryrates' Naraxi serving woman
Nessalanta—Dowager Duchess, mother of Benigaris
Nuanni (Nuannis)—ancient Nabbanai sea god
Pasevalles—Brindalles' young son
Pelippa, Saint—called "Pelippa of the Island"
Plesinnen Myrmenis—ancient scholar
Pryrates—priest, alchemist, wizard, Elias* counselor
Ranessin—Lector of Mother Church, killed at Sancellan

Aedonitis

Rhiappa, Saint—called "Rhiap" in Erkynland
Seriddan, Baron—Lord of Metessa, also known as

"Seriddan Metessis"
Sulis, Lord—Nabbanai nobleman, former master of

Hayholt, "Heron King," also known as "The Apostate"
Thures—Aspitis' young page
Usires Aedon—Aedonite religion's Son of GocT
Varellan—youngest son of Leobardis and Nessalanta,

Benigaris' brother
Velligis—Lector of Mother Church
Xannasavin—Nabbanai court astrologer
Yistrin, Saint—saint linked to Simon's birth-day

SITHI

Aditu, (no-Sa'onserei)—daughter of Likimeya and

Shima'onari; Jiriki's sister
Amerasu y-Senditu no'e-Sa'onserei—mother of Ineluki,

killed at Jao e-Tinukai'i, called "First Grandmother,"

also known as "Amerasu Ship-Born"

802 Tact Williams

Benayha (of Kementari)—famed Sithi poet and warrior
Brisevu Dawnfealher—Likimeya's mother, wife of

Hakatn

Cheka'iso—called "Amber-Locks." member of Sithi clan
Chiya—member of Silhi clan. once resident of Asu'a
Contemplation House—Sithi clan
Drukhi—son of Utuk'ku and Ekimeniso, husband of

Nenais'u

Gathering House—Sithi clan
Hakatri—Amerasu's son, vanished into West
Ineluki—Amerasu's son, killed at Asu'a, now Storm King
Initri—husband of Jenjiyana
Jenjiyana—wife of Initri, mother of Nenais'u, called "the

Nightingale"
Jiriki (i-Sa'onserei)—son of Likimeya and Shima'onari,

brother of Aditu

Kendhraja'aro—uncle of Jiriki and Aditu
Kira'athu—Sitha healer
Kuroyi—called "the tall horseman," master of High

Anvi'janya, leader of Sithi clan
Likimeya (y-Briseyu no'e-Sa'onserei)—mother of Jiriki

and Aditu, called "Likimeya Moon-Eyes"
Mezumiiru—mistress of moon in Sithi legend
Senditu—mother of Amerasu
Shi'iki—father of Amerasu
Shima'onari—father of Aditu and Jiriki, killed at Jao

e-Tinukai'i
Vindaomeyo—famed arrow-maker of Tumet'ai, called

"the Fletcher"

Year-Dancing House—Sithi clan
Yizashi Grayspear—leader of Sithi clan
Zinjadu—of Kementari, called "Lore-Mistress"

QANUC

Binabik (Binbiniqegabenik)—Scrollbearer. Singing Man

of Qanuc, Simon's friend
Chukku—legendary troll hero
Kikkasut—legendary king of birds

803

TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

Nimsuk—Qanuc herder, one of Sisqi's troop
Nunuuika—the Huntress
Ookequk—Scrollbearer, Binabik's master
Qinkipa (of the Snows)—snow and cold goddess
Sedda—moon goddess

Sisqi (Sisqinanamook)—daughter of Herder and Hunt-
ress, Binabik's betrothed
Snenneq—herd-chief of Lower Chugik
Uammannaq—the Herder

THRITHINGS-FOLK

Fikolmij—Vorzheva's father, March-thane of Clan

Mehrdon

Hotvig—High Thrithings randwarder, Josua's man
Lezhdraka—Thrithings-man, mercenary chieftain
Ozhbern—High Thrithings-man

Uigart—a mercenary captain from the Meadow Thrithing
Vorzheva—Josua's wife, daughter of Fikolmij

PERDRUINESE

Charystra—landlady of Pelippa's Bowl

Lenti—Streawe's servant, called "Avi Stetto"

Streawe, Count—master of Perdruin

Tallistro, Sir—famous knight of John's Great Table

Xorastra—Scrollbearer, first owner of Pelippa's Bowl

WRANNAMEN

Buayeg—owner of "the spirit-hut" (Wrannaman fable)
He Who Always Steps on Sand—god
He Who Bends the Trees—wind god
Inihe Red-Flower—woman in Tiamak's song
Nuobdig—Husband of the Fire Sister in Wrannaman leg-
end
Rimihe—Tiamak's sister

804 Tad Williams

She Who Birthed Mankind—goddess

She Who Waits to Take All Back—death goddess

Shoaneg Swift-Rowing—man in Tiamak's song

They Who Breathe Darkness—gods

They Who Watch and Shape—gods

Tiamak—Scrollbearer, herbalist

Tugumak—Tiamak's father

Twiyah—Tiamak's sister

Younger Mogahib—man of Tiamak's village

NORNS

Akhenabi—spokesman at Naglimund
"Bom-Beneath-Tzaaihta's-Stone"—one of Utuk'ku's Tal-
ons

"Called-by-the-Voices"—one of Utuk'ku's Talons
Ekimeniso Blackstaff—husband of Utuk'ku. father of

Drukhi

Mezhumeyru—Nom version of "Mezumiiru"
Utuk'ku Seyt-Hamakha—Norn Queen, Mistress of

Nakkiga
"Vein-of-Silverfire"—one of Utuk'ku's Talons

OTHERS

Derra—a half-Thri things child

Deornoth—a half-Thrithings child

Gan Itai—Niskie of Eadne Cloud

Geloe—a wise woman, called "Valada Geloe"

Imai-an—a dwarrow

Ingen Jegger—Black Rimmersman, huntsman of
Utuk'ku, killed at Jao eTinukai'i

Injar—Niskie clan living on Risa Island

Nin Reisu—Niskie of Emettin's Jewel

Ruyan Ve—patriarch of Tinukeda'ya, called "The Navi-
gator"

Sho-vennae—a dwarrow

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER                           805

Veng'a Sutekh—called "Duke of the Black Wind," one of

the Red Hand
Yis-fidri—a dwarrow, Yis-hadra's husband, master of the

Pattern Hall
Yis-hadra—a dwarrow, Yis-fidri's wife, mistress of the

Pattern Hall

PLACES

Anvi'janya—place of Kuroyi's dwelling, also known as
"Hidden" or "High" Anvi'janya

Ballacym—walled town on outskirts of Hemysadharc ter-
ritory

Bradach Tor—high peak in Grianspog Mountains

Bregshame—small town on River Road between
Stanshire and Falshire

Cathyn Dair, by Silversea—Hernystiri town from
Miriamele's song

Cavern of Rending—where Talons of Utuk'ku are trained

Chamul Lagoon—a place in Kwanitupul

Chasu Yarinna—town built around keep, just northeast of
Onestrine Pass in Nabban

ElvritshaUa—Isgrimnur's ducal seat in Rimmersgard

Falshire—wool-harvesting city in Erkynland, devastated
by Fengbald

Fiadhcoille—forest southeast of Nad Mullach, also
known as "Stagwood"

Fire Garden—tiled open space on Sesuad'ra

Frasilis Valley—valley east of Onestrine Pass (other side
of pass from Commeis Valley)

Garwynswold—small town on River Road between Stan-
shire and Falshire

Gratuvask—Rimmersgard river, runs past ElvritshaUa

Grenamman—island in Bay of Firannos

Hall of Five Staircases—chamber in Asu'a where Briseyu
died

Harcha—island in Bay of Firannos

Hasu Vale—valley in Erkynland

8o6 Tad Williams

Hekhasor—former Sithi territory, called "Hekhasor of the

Black Earth"

House of Waters—Sithi building on Sesuad'ra
Khandia—a lost and fabled land
Kiga'rasku—waterfall beneath Stormspike, called "the

Tearfair
Leavetaking House—Sithi building on Sesuad'ra, later

center ofJosua's exile court (Sithi name: "Sesu-d'asu")
M'yin Azoshai—Sithi name for Hem's Hill, location of

Hemysadharc

Maa 'sha—hilly former territory of Sithi
Mezutu'a—the Silverhome, abandoned Sithi and dwarrow

city beneath Grianspog
Mount Den Haloi—mountain from Book of the Aedon

where God created world
Naraxi—island in Bay of Firannos
Observatory, The—domed Sithi building on Sesuad'ra
Onestrine Pass—pass between two Nabbanai valleys, site

of many battles

Peat Barge Quay—dock in Kwanitupul
Peja 'ura—former forested home of Sithi, called "cedar-
mantled"

Pulley Road—road in Stanshire
Risa—island in Bay of Firannos
Shisae'ron—broad meadow valley, once Sithi territory
Si'injan 'dre Cave—place of Drukhi's confinement after

Nenais'u's death

Soakwood Road—a major thoroughfare of Stanshire
Spenit—island in Bay of Firranos
Taig Road—road leading through Hemysadharc, also

known as "Tethtain's Way"
Venyha Do'sae—original home of Sithi, Norns,

Tinukeda'ya, called "The ^Garden"
Vinitta—Island in Bay of Firannos
Wealdhelm—range of hills in Erkynland
Ya Mologi— ("Cradle Hill") highest point in Wran, leg-
endary creation spot
Yakh Huyeru— ("Hall of Trembling") cavern beneath

Stormspike
Yasird—Sithi sacred meeting place

TO (iKbfcN ANGLI  TOWl .i

CREATURES

807

Bukken—Rimmersgard name toi diggers, also called

"Boghanik" by irol'is

Cat—a gray (in this case) and undistinguished quadruped
Diggers—smali, manlike subterranean creatures
Chants—chitinous Wran-dweiting creatures
Giants—iarge, shaggy, manlike creatures
Drochnathair—Hernystiri name for dragon Hidohebhi.

slain by Ineluki and Hakatri
Homefinder—Simon's mare
Hunen—Rimmersgard name for giants
Igjarjuk—ice-dragon of Urmsheim
Kilpa—manlike marine creatures
Niku'a—Ingen Jegger's chief hound, bred in kennels of

Stormspike

Oruks—fabulous water monsters
Qantaqa—Binabik's wolf companion, mount, and friend
Shurakai—fire-drake slain beneath Hayholt whose bones

make up the Dragonbone Chair
Vildalix—Deomoth's horse
Vinyafod—Josua's horse
Water-wights—fabulous water monsters

THINGS

A-Genay'asu—("Houses of Traveling Beyond") places of

mystical power and significance
Aedontide—holy time celebrating birth of Usires Aedon
"Badulfand the Straying Heifer"—a song Simon tries to

sing to Miriamele

Battle of Clodu Lake—battle John fought against
Thrithings-men, also known as "Battle of the Lake-
lands"

"Bishop's Wagon, The"—a Jack Mundwode song
Boar and Spears—emblem of Guthwulf of Utanyeat
Breathing Harp, The—Master Witness in Stormspike

8o8 Tad Williams

Bright-Nail—sword of Prester John, formerly called
"Minneyar," containing nail from the Holy Tree and
finger-bone of Saint Eahlstan
"By Greenwade's Shore"—song sung at Bonfire Night on

Sesuad'ra
Cellian—Camaris' horn, made from dragon Hidohebhi's

tooth. (Original name: 'Ti-tuno*')
Citril—root for chewing, grown in south
Cockindrill—Northern word for "crocodile"
Conqueror Star—a comet, ominous star
Day of Weighing-Out—Aedonite day of final judgment
Door of the Ransomer—seal of confession
Du Svardenvyrd—near-mythical prophetic book by Nisses
Falcon, The—Nabbanai constellation
Fifty Families—Nabbanai noble houses
Floating Castle. The—famous monument on Warinsten
Frayja's Fire—Erkynlandish winter flower
Gardenborn, The—all who came from Venyha Do'sae
Good Peasant—character from the proverbs of the Book

of Aedon

Gray Coast—part of the shent board
Gray-cap—mushroom

Great Swords—Bright-Nail, Sorrow, and Thorn
Great Table—John's assembly of knights and heroes
Green Column, The—-Master Witness in Jhina T'senei
Hare, The—Erkynlandish constellation name
Harrow's Eve—Octander 30, day before "Soul's Day"
Hesitancy, a—Norn spell

High King's Ward—protection of High King over coun-
tries of Osten Ard
Hunt-wine—Qanuc liquor-
Indreju—Jiriki's witchwood sword
Juya'ha—Sithi art: pictures made of woven cords
Kei-vishaa—Substance used by Gardenborn to make ene-
mies drowsy and weak
Kingfisher, The—Nabbanai constellation
Kvalnir—Isgrimnur's sword
Lobster, The—Nabbanai constellation
Mansa Nictalis—Night ceremony of Mother Church
Market Hall—a domed building in centra! Kwanitupul

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER

809

, Mist Lamp—a Witness, brought out of Tumet'ai by

Amerasu

Mixis the Wolf— Nabbanai constellation
Mockfoil—a flowering herb

Muster of Anitulles—Imperatorial battle-muster from
Golden Age of Nabban

Navigator's Trust—Niskie pledge to protect their ships at

all cost

Night Heart—Sitha star-name
Ocean indefinite and Eternal—Niskie term for ocean

crossed by Gardenborn

Oldest Tree—Witchwood tree growing in Asu'a
One Who Fled, The—Aedonite euphemism for the Devil
Pact of Sesuad'ra—agreement of Sithi and Nom to part
Pool of Three Depths, The—Master Witness in Asu'a
Prise'a—"Ever-fresh," a favorite flower of Sithi
Quickweed—Wran herb
Rabbit-nose—mushroom
Red knifebill—Wran bird
Rhao iye-Sama'an—the Master Witness at Sesuad'ra,

called the "Earth-Drake's Eye"
Rhynn's Cauldron—Hernystiri battle -summoner
Rite of Quickening—Qanuc Spring ceremony
Saint Grams' Day—a holy day
Saint Rhiappa's—a cathedral in Kwanitupul
Sand Beetle, The—Wran name for constellation
Serpent, The—Nabbanai constellation
Shadow-mastery—Norn magics
Shard, The—Master Witness in Mezutu'a
Shent—a Sithi game of socializing and strategy
Snatch-the-feather—Wran gambling game
Sorrow—Elias' sword, a gift from Ineluki the Storm King
Speakfire, The—Master Witness in Hikehikayo
Spinning Wheel—Erkynlandish name for constellation
Sugar-bulb—Wran tree
Tarbox, The—inn at Falshire

Tethtain's Axe—sunk in the heart of a beech tree in fa-
mous Hernystiri tale
Thorn—black star-sword of Camaris

8io Tad Williams

Ti-tuno—Camaris' horn, made from dragon's tooth, also

known as "Cellian"
Tree, The—(or "Holy Tree," or "Execution Tree") symbol

of Usires Aedon's execution
Twistgrass—Wran plant
Uncharted, The—subject of Niskie oath
Wailing Stone—dolmen above Hasu Vale
Wedge and Beetle, The—Stanshire inn
Wind Festival—Wrannaman celebration
Winged Beetle, The—Nabbanai constellation
Winged dolphin—emblem of Streawe of Perdruin
Wintercap—Erkynlandish winter flower
"Woman from Nabban"—one of Sangfugol's songs
" Wormglass "-—Hernystiri name for certain old mirrors
Yellow Tinker—Wran plant

Yrmansol—tree of Erkynlandish Maia-day celebration
Yuvenis' Throne—Nabbanai constellation

Knuckle Bones—Binabik's auguring tools.
Patterns include:

Wingless Bird
Fish-Spear

The Shadowed Path
Torch at the Cave-Mouth
Balking Ram
Clouds in the Pass
The Black Crevice
Unwrapped Dart
Circle of Stones
Mountains Dancing

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER

WORDS AND PHRASES

811

QANUC

Henimaatuq! Ea kup!—"Beloved friend! You're here!"
Inij koku na siqqasa min taq—"When we meet again, that

will be a good day."
Iq ta randayhet suk biqahuc—"Winter is not being the

time for naked swimming."
Mindunob inik yat—"My home will be your tomb."
Nenit, henimaatuya—"Come on, friends."
Nihut—"Attack"
Shummuk—"Wait"
Ummu Bok—"Well done!" (roughly)

SITHI

A y'ei g'eisu! Yas'a pripuma jo-shoi!—"You cowardly

ones! The waves would not carry you!"
A-Genay'asu—"Houses of Traveling Beyond"
Hikeda'ya—"Cloud Children"; Norns
Hikka Staja—"Arrow Bearer"
Hikka Ti-tuno—"Bearer of Ti-tuno"
M'yon rashf—(Sithi) "Breakers of Things"
Sinya'a du-n'sha e-d'treyesa inro—"May you find the

light that shines above the bow"
Sudhoda'ya—"Sunset Children": Mortals
Sumy'asu—"Fifth House"

Tinukeda'ya—"Ocean Children": Niskies and dwarrows
Venyha s'ahn!—"By the Garden!"
Zida'ya—"Dawn Children": Sithi

NABBANAI

a prenteiz—"Take him!" or "At him!"
Duos preterate!—"God preserve"
Duos Simpetis—"Merciful God"

812 Tad Williams

Em Wulstes Duos—"By God's will"

Matra sa Duos—"Mother of God"

Otillenaes—"Tools"

Soria—"Sister"

Ulimor Camaris? Veveis?—"Lord Camaris? You live?"

HERNTSTIRI

Goirach cilagh!—"Foolish (or mad) girl!"
Moiheneg—"between" or "empty place" (a neutral

ground)
Smearech fleann—"dangerous book"

RJMMER5PAKK

Vad es ... Uf nammen Hott, vad es .
name of Gud, what?"

. ?—"What? In the

OTHER

Azha she'she t'chako, urun she'she bhabekro ... Mudhul
samat'ai. Jabbak s'era memekeza sanayha-z'a . . .
Ninyek she'she, hamut 'tke agrazh'a s'era ye ..."—
(Norn song) means Something Very Unpleasant

Shu'do-tkzayha!—(Norn) "mortals" (var. of Sithi
"Sudhoda'ya")

S'h'rosa—(Dwarrow) Vein of stone

A GUIDE TO PRONUNCIATION

ERKTNLANDISH

Erkynlandish names are divided into two types. Old
Erkynlandish (O.E.) and Warinstenner. Those names
which are based on types from Prester John's native is-

TO GRhLtS ANGL ] TUWH<

land of Warinsten (mostly the name'-, of castle servants or
John's immediate family) have been represented as vari-
ants on Biblical names (EIias—Elijah, Ebekah—Rebecca.
etc.) Old Erkynlandish names should be pronounced like
modern English, except as follow, s'

a—always ah, as in "fathci"

ac—ay of "say"

c—k as in "keen"

c—ai as in "air." except at the end of names, when it is
also sounded, but with an eh or uh sound, i.e., Hruse—
"Rooz-uh"

ea—sounds as a in "mark," except at beginning of
word or name, where it has the same value as ae

g—always hard g, as in "glad"

h—hard h of "help"

('—short (' of "in"

j—hard / of "jaw"

o—long but soft o, as in "orb"

u—oo sound of "wood," never yoo as in "music"

HERNTSTIRI

The Hemystiri names and words can be pronounced in
largely the same way as the O.E., with a few exceptions:

th—always the th in "other," never as in "thing"
ch—a guttural, as in Scottish "loch"
y—pronounce yr like "beer," ye like "spy"
h—unvoiced except at beginning of word or after t or
c

e—ay as in "ray"
//—same as single 1: Lluth—Luth

RIMMER5PAKK

Names and words in Rimmerspakk differ from O.E. pro-
nunciation in the following:

814                   Tad Williams

j—pronounced y: Jarnauga—Yarnauga; Hjeldin—
Hyeldin (H nearly silent here)
ei—long ( as in "crime"
e—ee, as in "sweet"
6—oo, as in "coop"
au—ow, as in "cow"

NABBANAI

The Nabbanai language holds basically to the rules of a
romance language, i.e., the vowels are pronounced "ah-
eh-ih-oh-ooh," the consonants are all sounded, etc. There
are some exceptions.

(—most names take emphasis on second to last sylla-
ble: Ben-i-GAR'is. When this syllable has an ;, it is
sounded long (Ardrivis: Ar-DRY-vis) unless it comes be-
fore a double consonant (Antippa: An-TIHP-pa)

es—at end of name, es is sounded long: Gelles—

Gel-leez

y—is pronounced as a long ;', as in "mild"

QANUC

Troll-language is considerably different than the other hu-
man languages. There are three hard "k" sounds, signified
by: c, q, and k. The only difference intelligible to most
non-Qanuc is a slight clucking sound on the q, but it is
not to be encouraged in beginners. For our purposes, all
three will sound with the k of "keep." Also, the Qanuc u
is pronounced uh, as in "bug." Other interpretations are
up to the reader, but he or she will not go far wrong pro-
nouncing phonetically.

SITHI

Even more than the language of Yiqanuc, the language of
the Zida'ya is virtually unpronounceable by untrained

TO   GREEN   ANGEL   TOWER                           815

tongues, and so is easiest rendered phonetically, since the

chance of any of us being judged by experts is slight (but

not nonexistent, as Binabik learned). These rules may be

applied, however.

;—when the first vowel, pronounced ifi, as in "clip."

When later in word, especially at end, pronounced ee, as

in "fleet": Jiriki—Jih-REE-kee
ai—pronounced like long i. as in "time"
' (apostrophe)—represents a clicking sound, and should

not be voiced by mortal readers.

EXCEPTIONAL NAMES

Geloe—Her origins are unknown, and so is the source of
her name. It is pronounced "Juh-LO-ee" or "Juh-LOY."
Both are correct.

Ingen Jegger—He is a Black Rimmersman, and the "J" in
Jegger is sounded, just as in "Jump."

^Miriamele—Although born in the Erkynlandish court,
hers is a Nabbanai name thar developed a strange pro-
nunciation—perhaps due to some family influence or

,'ilonfusion of her dual heritage—and sounds as "Mih-ree-
Uh-MEL."

Vorz.heva—A Thrithings-woman, her name is pronounced
^or-SHAY-va," with the zh sounding harshly, like the
Hungarian z.s.