The Stone of Farewell

by Tad Williams

  Poisonous fear crawled up from Dinivan’s stomach, mixing with his anger. “You will not harm the lector.”

  “And who will stop me? You?” Pryrates’ laugh turned scornful. “You can try anything you wish, little man. Scream if you like—no one will hear anything that happens in this hallway until I leave.”

  “Then I will prevent you myself.” Dinivan reached into his robe and pulled forth the Tree that hung around his neck.

  “Oh, Dinivan, you have missed your calling.” The alchemist stepped forward, the torch light burnishing the arc of his hairless head. “Instead of lector’s secretary, you should have sought a position as God’s own fool. You cannot stop me. You have no idea of the wisdom I have discovered, the powers I command.”

  Dinivan stood his ground as Pryrates advanced, bootheels echoing through the corridor. “If selling your immortal soul on the cheap is wisdom, I am happy to have none of it.” His fear mounting, he fought to keep his voice steady.

  Pryrates’ reptilian smile widened. “That is your mistake—you and all those timid fools who call themselves Scrollbearers. The League of the Scroll! A gossip society for whimpering, quibbling, would-be scholars. And you, Dinivan, are the worst of all. You have sold your own soul for superstitions and reassurances. Instead of opening your eyes to the mysteries of the infinite, you have hidden yourself among the callus-kneed ring-kissers of the church.”

  Rage flooded through Dinivan’s frame, momentarily reversing the tide of terror. “Stand back!” he shouted, lifting his Tree before him. It seemed to glow, as though the wood itself smoldered. “You will go no farther, servant of evil masters, unless you kill me first.”

  Pryrates eyes widened in mock-astonishment. “Ah. So the little priest has teeth! Well, then, we shall play the game your way ... and I will show you some teeth of my own.” He lifted his hands over his head. The alchemist’s scarlet robes billowed as though a wild wind gusted through the hallway. The torches rippled in their sockets, then blew out.

  “And remember this ...” Pryrates hissed in darkness. “I command the Words of Changing now! I am no one’s servant!”

  The Tree in Dinivan’s hand flared more brightly, but Pryrates remained sunken in shadow. The alchemist’s voice rose, chanting in a language whose very sound made Dinivan’s ears ache and wrapped a band of agony about his throat.

  “In the name of God the Highest ...” Dinivan shouted, but as Pryrates’ chant mounted toward a triumphant climax it seemed to tear the words of prayer from his mouth almost before they were spoken. Dinivan choked.

  “In the name of ...” His voice fell silent. In the shadows before him, Pryrates’ spell had become a grunting, gasping parody of speech as the alchemist suffered through some agonizing transformation.

  Where Pryrates had stood a roiling, unrecognizable shadow now flailed, writhing in knotted loops that grew larger and larger until even the starlight was blotted out and the hallway sank into unbreachable blackness. Ponderous lungs wheezed like a blacksmith’s bellows. A deadening, ancient cold filled the corridor with unseen frost.

  Dinivan flung himself forward with a shout of terrified rage, trying to strike the invisible thing with his Holy Tree, but instead found himself caught up like a doll by some massive yet horribly insubstantial appendage. They struggled, lost in the freezing darkness. Dinivan gasped as he felt something pushing its way into his terrified thoughts, scraping inside his head with burning fingers, trying to pry open his very mind like a jam jar. He fought back with all his strength, struggling to hold the image of Holy Aedon in his flickering thoughts; he thought he heard the thing that held him gasp in pain.

  But the shadow only seemed to grow more substantial. Its grip tightened around him, a horrible bone-cracking fist of jelly and lead. Sour, cold breath fluttered against his cheek like the kiss of nightmare.

  “In the name of God ... and the League ...” Dinivan groaned. The animal noises and terrible labored breathing began to fade away. Angels of painful, burning light filled his head, dancing to welcome the darkness, deafening him with their silent song.

  Cadrach dragged Miriamele’s limp form out into the hallway, swearing panicky oaths to various saints, gods, and demons. The only light was the thin blue of starlight bleeding in through the windows high overhead, but it was difficult not to see the huddled figure of the priest laying like a discarded puppet in the center of the corridor a few steps away. It was equally impossible to ignore the ghastly cries and shrieks coming from the lector’s chamber at the end of the hall, where the thick wooden door lay splintered across the floor.

  The noises ceased abruptly, ending on a drawn-out wail of despair that dwindled at last to a gurgling hiss. Cadrach’s face filled with horror. He bent and swept up the princess, heaving her over his shoulder, then crouched awkwardly to pick up their bag of possessions. He straightened and staggered away from the destruction at the far end of the hall, fighting to stay on his feet.

  Around the corner the passageway widened, but there also the torches had been extinguished. He thought he could see the shadowy forms of armored men standing sentry, but they were motionless as relics. The unhurried echo of booted feet sounded in the arched hall behind him. Cadrach hurried forward, cursing the slippery tiles.

  The passage turned once more, opening into the great entrance chamber, but as he scurried through the arch he struck something solid as a wall of adamant, although he had seen nothing in the doorway but air. Stunned, he tripped and tumbled backward. Miriamele slid from his shoulder to the hard floor.

  The sound of approaching bootheels grew louder. Cadrach reached forward in a fit of panic, encountering an unnatural wall, an invisible but unyielding something. More transparent than crystal, it showed clearly every detail of the torchlit chamber beyond.

  “Ah, please, don’t let him have her,” the monk murmured, clawing with desperate fingers, searching for some flaw in the invisible barrier. “Please!”

  His questing was in vain. The wall was seamless.

  Cadrach kneeled before the doorway, head slowly sinking to his chest as the approaching footfalls grew louder. The unmoving monk might have been a prisoner waiting at the executioner’s block. Suddenly, he looked up.

  “Wait!” he hissed. “Think, idiot man, think!” He shook his head and took a deep breath, then released it and took one more. He held his palm before the archway and spoke a single quiet word. A wash of cold air blew past him, ruffling the tapestries in the entrance chamber. The barrier was gone.

  He dragged Miriamele through, pulling her across the floor and into one of the archways opening off the grand chamber. They disappeared from sight just as Pryrates’ red-robed figure appeared in the doorway where the unseen impediment had been. Dim sounds of alarm were beginning to filter through the halls.

  The red priest paused as though surprised to find his barrier gone. Nevertheless, he turned and sketched a gesture in the direction from which he had come, as though to sweep away whatever traces of his handiwork might remain.

  His voice boomed, reverberating down the corridors in all directions. “Murder!” he cried. “Murderers are in God’s house!” As the echoes died away he smiled briefly and set off toward the chambers where he stayed as the lector’s guest.

  Struck by a thought, Pryrates stopped suddenly in the archway and turned to survey the chamber. He lifted his hand once more, fingers flexing. One of the torches gouted sparks, then spat out a tongue of flame which leaped across to a row of tapestries lining the wall. The ancient weavings blazed, fire licking upward at the great ceiling beams and spreading rapidly from wall to wall. In the hallway beyond, other fires were also blooming.

  The alchemist grinned. “One must give omens their due,” he said to no one present, then departed, chuckling. All around, the babble of confused and frightened voices began to fill the byways of the Sancellan Aedonitis.

  Duke Isgrimnur congratulated himself for bringing a candle. The hallway was black as tar. Where were the sentries? Why weren’t
the torches lit?

  Whatever the problem was, the Sancellan was awakening all around him. He heard someone shout boldly of murder, which set his heart swiftly beating; this was followed by other, more distant cries. For a few moments he considered returning to his tiny room, but decided that perhaps the confusion was for the best. Whatever the cause of the alarm really was—and he doubted it was murder—it might mean he would be able to find the lector’s secretary without having to answer wearisome questions from the lector’s guards.

  The candle in its wooden holder threw Isgrimnur’s shadow high against the walls of the great entrance hall. As the sounds of approaching discovery grew, he wracked his brain for the proper exit from the chamber. He chose the archway that seemed likeliest.

  A short distance past the second turning of the hallway, he found himself in a wide gallery. A robed figure lay sprawled on the floor amid a tangle of draperies, beneath the unperturbed stare of several armed guards.

  Are they statues, then? he wondered. But, damn me, statuary never looked like that. See, that one there is leaning as though he were whispering to the other. He stared up at the unseeing eyes that gleamed within the helms and felt his skin crawling. Aedon save us. Black sorcery, that’s what it is.

  To his despair, he recognized the body on the floor the moment he turned it over. Dinivan’s face seemed bluish, even by the dim candlelight. Thin stripes of blood had run forward from his ears, drying on his cheek like red tears. His body felt like a sack of broken twigs.

  “Elysia, Mother of God, what’s happened here?” the duke groaned aloud.

  Dinivan’s eyes fluttered open, startling Isgimnur so that he almost let the priest’s head fall back against the tiles. Dinivan’s gaze wandered for a moment before fixing on him. It might have been the candle Isgrimnur awkwardly held, but the priest’s eyes seemed to burn with a strange spark. Whatever the case, Isgrimnur knew it was a spark that would not last long.

  “Lector ... ” Dinivan breathed. Isgrimnur leaned closer. ”Look ... to ... lector.”

  “Dinivan, it’s me,” he said. “Duke Isgrimnur. I’ve come looking for Miriamele. ”

  “Lector,” the priest said stubbornly, his bloodied lips struggling to form the word. Isgrimnur sat up.

  “Very well.” He looked helplessly for something to cushion the priest’s wounded head, but could find nothing. He let Dinivan down, then rose and walked to the end of the hallway. There was little doubt which room was the lector’s—the door lay in great shards, and even the marble around the door-frame was scorched and crumbled. There was even less doubt about Lector Ranessin’s fate. Isgrimnur took one look around the ruined chamber, then turned and retreated hurriedly into the corridor. Blood had been smeared across the walls as if by a huge brush. The mangled forms of Mother Church’s leader and his young servant were barely recognizable as human: their corpses had been spared no indignities. Even Isgrimnur’s old soldier’s heart quailed at the sight of so much blood.

  Flames were flickering in the far archway when the duke returned, but he steeled himself to ignore them for a moment. Time for thought of escape later. He took Dinivan’s cold hand.

  “The lector is dead. Can you help me find Princess Miriamele?”

  The priest breathed raggedly for a moment. The light in his eyes was fading. “She’s ... here,” he said slowly. “Called ... Malachias. Ask room-warden.” He gasped for air. “Take her ... to ... Kwanitupul ... to Pelippa’s Bowl. Tiamak is ... there.”

  Isgrimnur’s eyes filled with tears. This man should be dead. There could be nothing keeping him alive but sheer will. “I’ll find her,” he said. “I’ll keep her safe.”

  Dinivan suddenly seemed to recognize him. “Tell Josua,” he panted. “I fear ... false messengers.”

  “What does that mean?” Isgrimnur asked, but Dinivan was silent, his free hand crawling across his chest like a dying spider, fumbling hopelessly at the neck of his robe. Isgrimnur gently pulled out Dinivan’s Holy Tree and laid it on his chest, but the priest shook his head feebly, trying once more to reach inside his robe. Isgrimnur lifted out a golden scroll and quill pendant on a chain. The catch broke as he held it; the chain spilled out into the damp hair at Dinivan’s neck like a tiny, gleaming snake.

  “Give ... Tiamak,” Dinivan rasped. Isgrimnur could barely hear him over the clamor of approaching voices and the crackle of flames in the corridor beyond. The duke slipped it into the pocket of his monk’s robe, then looked up, startled by a sudden movement nearby. One of the immobile guards, illuminated by pulsing fireglow, was swaying in place. A moment later he fell forward with a crash, his helmet skittering across the tiles. The toppled soldier groaned.

  When Isgrimnur looked down again, the light had fled Dinivan’s eyes.

  16

  The unhomed

  The darkness in the abbey was complete, the silence marred only by Simon’s ragged breath. Then Skodi spoke again, her voice no longer whisperingly sweet.

  “Stand up.”

  Some force seemed to tug at him, a pressure delicate as a cobweb but strong as iron. His muscles flexed against his will, but he resisted. A short time before he had struggled to rise—now, he strained to lie still.

  “Why do you fight me?” Skodi asked petulantly. Her chilly hand brushed across his chest and down onto the quivering skin of his stomach. He flinched, and control of his limbs slipped away as the girl’s will closed on him like a fist. A forceful but intangible pull brought him to his feet. He swayed in the darkness, unable to find his balance. “We will give them the sword,” Skodi crooned, “the black sword—oh, we will get such lovely presents...”

  “Where ... are ... my friends?” Simon croaked.

  “Hush, silly. Go out to the yard.”

  He stumbled helplessly through the darkened room, barking his shins on hidden obstacles, lurching like a clumsily manipulated puppet.

  “Here,” Skodi said. The abbey’s front door swung open on grating hinges, filling the room with baleful reddish light. She stood in the doorway, pale hair fluttering in the swirling wind. “Come, now, Simon. What a night this is! A wild night.”

  The bonfire in the dooryard blazed even higher than it had when the travelers arrived, a beacon of flame that reached the height of the sloping roof and threw the abbey’s cracked walls into red relief. Skodi’s children, the young and old alike, were feeding all manner of strange objects into the fire: broken chairs and other bits of ruined furniture, and deadwood from the surrounding forest that burned with a ceaseless hiss of steam. In fact, the bonfire’s eager wardens seemed to be throwing everything they could find into the blaze, without regard for suitability—rocks and animal bones, cracked pottery, and shards of colored glass from the abbey’s decaying windows. As the flames roared and leaped in the surging wind, the children’s eyes caught the light, glowing like the yellow orbs of foxes.

  Simon tottered out onto the snowy courtyard with Skodi following close behind. A keening howl lanced through the night, a wretched, lonely sound. Slow as a sunning tortoise, Simon swiveled his head toward the green-eyed shape crouched atop the hill that overlooked the clearing. Simon felt an instant of hope as it lifted its muzzle and moaned again.

  “Qantaqa!” he cried; the name fell strangely from his stiff jaws and slack lips. The wolf came no closer than the hill-crest. She howled once more, a cry of fear and frustration as clear as if it had been spoken with a human tongue.

  “Nasty animal,” Skodi said with distaste. “Child-eater. Moon-shouter. It won’t come near Skodi’s house. It won’t break my charm.” She stared hard at the green eyes and Qantaqa’s baying became a whimper of pain. A moment later the wolf turned and vanished from the rise. Simon cursed inwardly and struggled again to break free, but he was still as helpless as a kitten dangled by the scruff. Only his head seemed his own, and every movement was painfully difficult. He turned slowly, looking for Binabik and Sludig, then stopped, eyes widening.

  Two crumpled shapes, one small, one large, lay on th
e frosty ground against the abbey’s rotted plaster front. Simon’s tears froze into stinging ice on his cheek as something tugged his head back around and drew him another unwilling step toward the fire.

  “Wait,” Skodi said. Her voluminous white nightdress flapped in the wind. Her feet were bare. “I do not want you too close. You might be burned and that would spoil you. Stand there.” She pointed a plump arm at a spot a couple of paces away. As if he were an extension of her hand, Simon found himself trudging unsteadily across the thawing mud to the spot she had indicated.

  “Vren!” Skodi cried. She seemed gripped by maniacal good cheer. “Where is that rope? Where are you?”

  The dark-haired boy appeared in the abbey’s front doorway. “Here, Skodi.”

  “Tie his pretty wrists.”

  Vren shot forward, skittering over the icy ground. He grasped Simon’s limp hands and pulled them behind his back, then deftly bound him with a length of rope.

  “Why are you doing this, Vren?” Simon gasped. “We were kind to you.”

  The Hyrka boy ignored him, pulling the knots tight. When he had finished, he put his small hands on Simon’s hips and pushed him toward where Binabik and Sludig lay huddled.

  Like Simon, both had their hands trussed behind their backs. Binabik’s eyes rolled to meet Simon’s, the whites gleaming in the fire-shadowed yard. Sludig was breathing but insensible, a strand of spittle frozen on his blond beard.

  “Simon-friend,” the troll rasped, each word a labor. The little man drew breath as if to say more, but instead fell back into silence.

  Across the yard, Skodi had bent to draw a circle in the melting snow, trickling a handful of reddish powder from her fist. When that was finished, she began to scrape runes into the muddy ground, her tongue clenched between her teeth like a studious child. Vren stood a short distance away, swiveling his head from Skodi to Simon and back again, face empty of all emotion but a sort of animal watchfulness.