Tad Williams - Memory Sorrow & Thorn 1 - The Dragonbone Cha

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The Dragonbone Chair
by Tad Williams
Book One of Memory, Sorrow and Thorn
Foreword .................................................................................................................. 5
PART ONE: SIMON MOONCALF ............................................................................. 6
The Grasshopper and the King................................................................................. 6
A Two-Frog Story ................................................................................................... 12
Birds in the Chapel ................................................................................................. 19
Cricket Cage ........................................................................................................... 26
The Tower Window................................................................................................. 33
The Cairn on the Cliffs ........................................................................................... 44
The Conqueror Star ................................................................................................ 57
Bitter Air and Sweet................................................................................................ 66
Smoke on the Wind.................................................................................................. 75
King Hemlock ......................................................................................................... 83
An Unexpected Guest.............................................................................................. 96
Six Silver Sparrows............................................................................................... 105
Between Worlds .................................................................................................... 115
The Hill Fire ......................................................................................................... 124
PART TWO: SIMON PILGRIM.............................................................................. 135
A Meeting at the Inn ............................................................................................. 135
The White Arrow................................................................................................... 144
Binabik.................................................................................................................. 153
A Net of Stars........................................................................................................ 158
The Blood of Saint Hoderund ............................................................................... 167
The Shadow of the Wheel...................................................................................... 179
Cold Comforts....................................................................................................... 190
A Wind from the North.......................................................................................... 199
Back into the Heart............................................................................................... 208
The Hounds of Erkynland ..................................................................................... 215
The Secret Lake..................................................................................................... 225
In the House of Geloë ........................................................................................... 234
The Gossamer Towers .......................................................................................... 249
Drums of Ice ......................................................................................................... 264
Hunters and Hunted.............................................................................................. 273
PART THREE: SIMON SNOWLOCK.................................................................... 283
A Thousand Nails.................................................................................................. 283
The Councils of the Prince ................................................................................... 293
Northern Tidings................................................................................................... 305
From the Ashes of Asu’a....................................................................................... 316
Forgotten Swords ................................................................................................. 327
The Raven and the Cauldron ................................................................................ 344
Fresh Wounds and Old Scars ............................................................................... 354
Jiriki’s Hunt.......................................................................................................... 366
Songs of the Eldest................................................................................................ 379
High King’s Hand................................................................................................. 389
The Green Tent ..................................................................................................... 402
Cold Fire and Grudging Stone ............................................................................. 414
Beneath the Uduntree ........................................................................................... 426
The Harrowing...................................................................................................... 441
Blood and the Spinning World.............................................................................. 454
This book is dedicated to my mother, Barbara Jean Evans, who taught to me a deep
affection for Toad Hall, the Hundred Aker Woods, the Shire, and many other hidden places
and countries beyond the fields we know. She also induced in me a lifelong desire to make
my own discoveries, and to share them with others. I wish to share this book with her.
Authors Note
“I have undertaken a labor, a labor out of love for the world and to comfort noble
hearts: those that I hold dear, and the world to which my heart goes out. Not the common
world do I mean, of those who (as I have heard) cannot bear grief and desire but to bathe in
bliss. (May God then let them dwell in bliss!) Their world and manner of life my tale does
not regard: its life and mine lie apart. Another world do I hold in mind, which bears
together in one heart its bitter sweetness and its dear grief, its heart’s delight and its pain of
longing, dear life and sorrowful death, dear death and sorrowful life. In this world let me
have my world, to be damned with it, or to be saved.”
– Gottfried von Strassburg
(author of Tristan und Isolt)
This work would not have been possible without the help of many people. My thanks
go out to: Eva Cumming, Nancy Deming-Williams, Arthur Ross Evans, Peter Stampfel,
and Michael Whelan, who all read a dreadfully long manuscript, then offered support,
useful advice, and clever suggestions; to Andrew Harris, for logistical support above and
beyond the call of friendship; and especially to my editors, Betsy Wollheim and Sheila
Gilbert, who worked long and hard to help me write the best book I could. They are great
souls all.
Author’s Warning
Wanderers in the land of Osten Ard are cautioned not to put blind trust in old rules and
forms, and to observe all rituals with a careful eye, for they often mask being with
seeming.
The Qanuc-folk of the snow-mantled Trollfells have a proverb. “He who is certain he
knows the ending of things when he is only beginning them is either extremely wise or
extremely foolish; no matter which is true, he is certainly an unhappy man, for he has put a
knife in the heart of wonder.”
More bluntly, new visitors to this land should take heed:
Avoid Assumptions.
The Qanuc have another saying: “Welcome stranger. The paths are treacherous today.”
Foreword
“...The book of the mad priest Nisses is large, say those who have held it, and as heavy
as a small child. It was discovered at Nisses’ side as he lay, dead and smiling, beside the
tower window from which his master King Hjeldin had leaped to his own death moments
before.
The rusty brown ink, concocted of lambsfoil, hellebore, and rue – as well as some
redder, thicker liquid – is dry, and flakes easily from the thin pages. The unadorned skin of
a hairless animal, the species unprovable, forms the binding.
Those holy men of Nabban who read it after Nisses’ passing pronounced it heretical
and dangerous, but for some reason did not bum it, as is usually done with such texts.
Instead, it lay for many years in Mother Church’s near-endless archives, in the deepest,
most secret vaults of the Sancellan Aedonitis. It has now apparently disappeared from the
onyx casket which housed it; the never-gregarious Order of the Archives is vague as to its
present whereabouts.
Some who have read Nisses’ heretical work claim that it contains all the secrets of
Osten Ard, from this land’s murky past to the shadows of things unborn. The Aedonite
priest-examiners will say only that its subject matter was ‘unholy.’
It may indeed be true that Nisses’ writings predict the what-will-be as clearly – and,
we may presume, eccentrically – as they chronicle the what-has-been. It is not known,
however, whether the great deeds of our age – especially, for our concern, the rise and
triumph of Prester John – are included in the priest’s foretellings, although there are
suggestions that this may be true. Much of Nisses’ writing is mysterious, its meaning
hidden in strange rhymes and obscure references. I have never read the full work, and most
of those who have are now long dead.
The book is titled, in the cold, harsh runes of Nisses’ northern birthplace, Du
Svardenvyrd, which means The Weird of the Swords...”
– from The Life and Reign of King John Presbyter
by Morgenes Ercestres
PART ONE: Simon Mooncalf
The Grasshopper and the King
On this day of days there was an unfamiliar stirring deep inside the dozing heart of the
Hayholt, in the castle’s bewildering warren of quiet passages and overgrown, ivy-choked
courtyards, in the monk’s holes and damp, shadowed chambers. Courtiers and servants
alike goggled and whispered. Scullions exchanged significant glances across the washing
tubs in the steamy kitchen. Hushed conversations seemed to be taking place in every
hallway and dooryard of the great keep It might have been the first day of spring, to judge
from the air of breathless anticipation, but the great calendar in Doctor Morgenes’ cluttered
chamber showed differently: the month was only Novander. Autumn was holding the door,
and Winter was trudging in.
What made this a day different from all others was not a season but a place – the
Hayholt’s throne room. For three long years its doors had been shut by the king’s order,
and heavy draperies had cloaked the multicolored windows. Even the cleaning servants
had not been permitted to cross the threshold, causing the Mistress of Chambermaids no
end of personal anguish. Three summers and three winters it had stood undisturbed. Today
it was no longer empty, and all the castle hummed with rumor.
In truth, there was one person in the busy Hayholt whose attention was not fixed on
that long-untenanted room, one bee in the murmuring hive whose solitary song was not in
key with the greater droning. That one sat in the heart of the Hedge Garden, in an alcove
between the dull red stone of the chapel and the leafless side of a skeletal hedge-lion, and
thought he was not missed. It had been an irritating day so far – the women all busy, with
scant time to answer questions; breakfast late, and cold into the bargain. Confusing orders
had been given to him, as usual, and no one had any time to waste with any of his
problems...
And that was also, he thought grumpily, quite predictable. If it hadn’t been for his
discovery of this huge, magnificent beetle – which had come strolling across the garden, as
self-satisfied as any prosperous villager – then the entire afternoon would have been a
waste of time.
With a twig he widened the tiny road he had scraped in the dark, cold earth beside the
wall, but still the captive would not walk forward. He tickled gently at its glossy carapace,
but the stubborn beetle would not budge. Frowning, he sucked at his upper lip.
“Simon! Where in the name of holy Creation have you been!”
The twig dropped from his nerveless fingers, as though an arrow had pierced his heart.
Slowly, he turned to look at the looming shape.
“Nowhere...” Simon began to say, but even as the words passed his lips a pair of bony
fingers caught his ear and brought him sharply to his feet, yelping in pain.
“Don’t you dare ‘nowhere’ me, young layabout,” Rachel the Dragon, Mistress of
Chambermaids, barked full into his face – a juxtaposition made possible only by Rachel’s
tiptoed stance and the boy’s natural inclination to slouch, for the head chambermaid lacked
nearly a foot of Simon’s height.
“Sorry, then, mistress, I’m sorry,” Simon muttered, noting with sadness the beetle
nosing toward a crack in the chapel wall and freedom.
“ ‘Sorry’ is not going to get you by forever,” Rachel growled. “Every single body in
the house is at work a-getting things ready but you! And, bad enough that is, but then /
have to waste my valuable time trying to find you! How can you be such a wicked boy,
Simon, when you should be acting like a man? How can you?”
The boy, fourteen gangly years old and furiously embarrassed, said nothing. Rachel
stared at him.
Sad enough, she thought, that red hair and those spots, but when he squints his eyes
all up that way and scowls – why, the child looks half-witted!
Simon, staring in turn at his captor, saw Rachel breathing heavily, pluming the
Novander air with puffs of vapor. She was shivering, too, although whether from the cold
or anger, Simon couldn’t tell. It didn’t really matter. It just made him feel worse.
She’s still waiting for an answer – how tired and cross she looks! He curled himself
into an even more pronounced slump and glared at his own feet.
“Well, you’ll just come with me, then. The good Lord knows I’ve got things to keep
an idle boy busy with. Don’t you know the king is up out of his sickbed? That he’s gone to
his throne room today? Are you deaf and blind?” She grabbed his elbow and frog-marched
him across the garden.
“The King? King John?” Simon asked, surprised.
“No, you ignorant boy. King Stone-in-the-Road! Of course King John!” Rachel halted
in her tracks to push a wisp of limp steel-gray hair back under her bonnet. Her hand
trembled. “There, I hope you’re happy,” she said. “You’ve gotten me so flummoxed and
upset that I’ve gone and been disrespectful to the name of our good old King John. And
him so sick and all.” She snuffled loudly and then leaned over to deal Simon a stinging
slap on the-fat part of his arm. “Just you come.”
She stumped forward, wicked boy in tow.
Simon had never known any other home but the ageless castle called Hayholt, which
meant High Keep. It was well named: Green Angel Tower, its loftiest point, soared far
above even the eldest and tallest of trees. If the Angel herself, perched on the tower top,
had dropped a stone from her verdigrised hand it would have plummeted nearly two
hundred cubits before splashing into the brackish moat and troubling the sleep of the great
pikefish bobbing close above the centuried mud.
The Hayholt was older by far than all the generations of Erkynlandish peasants who
had been born, labored, and died in the fields and villages surrounding the great keep. The
Erkynlanders were only the latest to claim the castle – many others had called it their own,
but none had been able to make it wholly so. The outwall around the sprawling keep
showed the work of diverse hands and times: the rough-hewn rock and timber of the
Rimmersmen, the haphazard patching and strange carvings of the Hernystiri, even the
meticulous stonework of Nabbanai craftsmen. But looming over all stood Green Angel
Tower, erected by the undying Sithi long before men had come to these lands, when all of
Osten Ard had been their dominion. The Sithi had been the first to build here, constructing
their primeval stronghold on the headlands overlooking the Kynslagh and the river-road to
the sea. They had called their castle Asu’a; if it had a true name, this house of many
masters, then Asu’a was that name.
The Fair Folk had vanished now from the grassy plains and rolling hill country, fled
mostly to the woods and craggy mountains and other dark places inconvenient to men. The
bones of their castle – a home to usurpers – remained behind.
Asu’a the paradox; proud yet ramshackle, festive and forbidding, seemingly oblivious
to changes of tenantry. Asu’a – the Hayholt. It bulked mountainously above the outlands
and town, hunched over its fief like a sleeping, honey-muzzled bear among her cubs.
It often seemed that Simon was the only dweller in the great castle who had not settled
into his place in life. The masons plastered the whitewashed facing of the residence and
shored up the castle’s crumbling walls – although the crumbling did sometimes seem to
outpace the restorations – with never a thought toward how the world spun or why. The
pantlers and butlers, whistling merrily, rolled huge casks of sack and salted beef here and
there. With the castle seneschal beside them, they haggled with farmers over the whiskery
onions and soil-moist carrots brought in sacks to the Hayholt’s kitchen every morning. And
Rachel and her chambermaids were always excruciatingly busy, flourishing their brooms
of bound straw, chasing dust balls as if herding skittish sheep, muttering pious
imprecations about the way some people left a chamber when they departed, and generally
terrorizing the slothful and slovenly.
In the midst of such industry, gawky Simon was the fabled grasshopper in the nest of
ants. He knew he would never amount to much: many people had told him so, and nearly
all of them were older – and presumably wiser – than he. At an age when other boys were
clamoring for the responsibilities of manhood, Simon was still a muddier and a meanderer.
No matter what task he was given to do, his attention soon wandered, and he would be
dreaming of battles, and giants, and sea voyages on tall, shining ships... and somehow,
things would get broken, or lost, or done wrong.
Other times he could not be found at all. He skulked around the castle like a scrawny
shadow, could shinny up a wall as well as the roof-masons and glaziers, and knew so many
passageways and hiding holes that the castle folk called him “ghost boy.” Rachel boxed his
ears frequently, and called him a mooncalf.
Rachel had finally let go of his arm, and Simon dragged his feet glumly as he followed
the Mistress of Chambermaids like a stick caught in a skirt hem. He had been discovered,
his beetle had escaped, and the afternoon was ruined.
“What must I do, Rachel,” he mumbled unpleasantly, “help in the kitchen?”
Rachel snorted disdainfully and waddled on, a badger in an apron. Simon looked back
regretfully on the sheltering trees and hedges of the garden. Their commingled footfalls
resounded solemnly down the long stone hallway.
He had been raised by the chambermaids, but since he was certainly never going to be
one himself – his boy-ness aside, Simon was obviously not to be trusted with delicate
domestic operations – a concerted effort had been made to find suitable labors for him. In a
great house, and the Hayholt was doubtless the greatest, there was no place for those who
did not work. He found employment of a sort in the castle kitchens, but even at this
undemanding job he was not completely successful. The other scullions would laugh and
nudge each other to see Simon – elbow-deep in hot water, eyes squinted shut in oblivious
reverie – learning the trick of bird flight, or saving dream-maidens from imaginary beasts
as his scrubbing stick floated off across the washing vat.
Legend had it that Sir Fluiren – a relative of the famous Sir Camaris of Nabban – had
in his youth come to the Hayholt to be a knight, and had worked a year in disguise in this
same scullery, due to his ineffable humility. The kitchen workers had teased him – or so
the story went – calling him “Pretty-hands” because the terrible toil did not diminish the
fine whiteness of his fingers.
Simon had only to look at his own cracked-nail, pink-boiled paws to know that he was
no great lord’s orphan son. He was a scullion and a corner sweeper, and that was that. At a
not much greater age, everyone knew, King John had slain the Red Dragon. Simon
wrestled with brooms and pots. Not that it made much difference: it was a different, quieter
world than in John’s youth, thanks largely to the old king himself. No dragons – living
ones, anyway – inhabited the dark, endless halls of the Hayholt. But Rachel – as Simon
often cursed to himself – with her sour face and terrible, tweezing fingers, was near
enough.
They reached the antechamber before the throne room, the center of the inordinate
activity. The chambermaids, moving at a near-run, careened from wall to wall like flies in
a bottle. Rachel stood with fists set on hips and surveyed her domain – seeming, from the
smile that tightened her thin mouth, to find it good.
Simon lurked against a tapestried wall, forgotten for a moment. Slouching, he stared
from the corner of his eyes at the new girl Hepzibah, who was plump and curly-haired and
walked with an insolent sway. Passing by with a sloshing bucket of water she caught his
glance and smiled widely, amused. Simon felt fire crackling up his neck into his cheeks
and turned to pick at the tattered wall hanging.
Rachel had not missed the exchange of looks.
“Lord whip you for a donkey, boy, didn’t I tell you to get to work? Have at it, then!”
“At what? Do what?” Simon shouted, and was mortified to hear Hepzibah’s silvery
giggle float out from the hallway. He pinched his own arm in frustration. It hurt.
“Take this broom, and go and sweep out the Doctor’s chambers. That man lives like a
pack rat, and who knows where the king will want to go now that he’s up?” It was clear
from her tone that Rachel found the general contrariness of men to be undiminished by
kingship.
“Doctor Morgenes’ chambers?” Simon asked; for the first time since he had been
discovered in the garden his spirits rose. “I’ll do it straight away!” He snatched the broom
at a dead run and was gone.
Rachel snorted and turned back to examine the spotless perfection of the antechamber.
She briefly wondered what could possibly be going on behind the great throne-room door,
then dismissed the errant thought as mercilessly as she might swat a hovering gnat.
Herding her legions with clapping hands and steely eye, she led them out of the
antechamber and off to another pitched battle against her archenemy, disorder.
In that hall beyond the door dusty banners hung, row upon row along the walls, a
faded bestiary of fantastic animals: the sun-golden stallion of Clan Mehrdon, Nabban’s
gleaming kingfisher crest, owl and ox, otter, unicorn, and cockatrice – rank after rank of
silent, sleeping creatures. No draft stirred these threadbare hangings; even the spiderwebs
sagged empty and unstitched.
Some small change had come to the throne room, though – something lived once more
in the shadowed chamber. Someone was singing a quiet tune in the thin voice of a very
young boy or a very old man.
At the farthest end of the hall a massive tapestry hung on the stone wall between the
statues of the High Kings of the Hayholt, a tapestry bearing the royal coat of arms, the
Firedrake and the Tree. The grim malachite statues, an honor guard of six, flanked a huge,
heavy chair that seemed entirely carved from yellowing ivory, the chair arms knobbed and
knuckled, the back capped with a huge, many-toothed, serpentine skull whose eyes were
pools of shadow.
It was on and before this chair that two figures sat. The small one clothed in worn
motley was singing; it was his voice that floated up from the foot of the throne, too weak to
chip loose even a slight echo. Over him bent a gaunt shape, perched at the edge of the chair
like an aged raptor – a tired, hobbled bird of prey shackled to the dull bone.
The king, three years sick and enfeebled, had returned to his dusty hall. He listened as
the small man at his feet sang; the king’s long, mottled hands grasped the arms of his great,
yellowing throne.
He was a tall man – once very tall, but now hunched like a monk at prayer. He wore a
sagging robe of sky blue, and was bearded like a Usirean prophet. A sword lay athwart his
lap, shining as though new-polished; on his brow sat an iron crown, studded all about with
sea-green emeralds and secretive opals.
The mannekin at the king’s feet paused for a long, silent moment, then began another
song:
“Can tha count th’ rain-drops
When th’ sun is high?
Can tha swim th’ river
When th’ bed gang dry?
Can tha catch a cloud?
Nay, canst not, nor I...
An’ th’ wind a cry ‘Wait.’
As a passeth by.
Th’wind a cry ‘Wait.’
As a passeth by...”
When the tune was finished, the tall old man in the blue robe reached down his hand
and the jester took it. Neither said a word.
John the Presbyter, Lord of Erkynland and High King of all Osten Ard; scourge of the
Sithi and defender of the true faith, wielder of the sword Bright-Nail, bane of the dragon
Shurakai... Prester John was sitting once more upon his chair made of dragon’s bones. He
was very, very old, and had been crying.
“Ah, Towser,” he breathed at last, his voice deep but flawed with age, “it is surely an
unmerciful God who could bring me to this sorry pass.”
“Perhaps, my lord.” The little old man in the checkered jerkin smiled a wrinkled smile.
“Perhaps... but doubtless many others would not complain of cruelty if brought to your
station in life.”
“But that is just what I mean, old friend!” The king shook his head angrily. “In this
shadow-age of infirmity, all men are leveled. Any thick-witted tailor’s apprentice sups
more of life that I!”
“Ah, la now my lord, my lord...” Towser’s grizzled head wagged from side to side, but
the bells of his cap – long since clapperless – did not jingle. “My lord, you complain
seasonably, but unreasonably. All men come to this pass, great or small. You have had a
fine life.”
Prester John lifted the hilt of Bright-Nail before him, holding it as though it were a
Holy Tree. He pulled the back of a long thin hand across his eyes.
“Do you know the story of this blade?” he asked.
Towser looked up sharply: he had heard the story many times.
“Tell me, O King,” he said quietly.
Prester John smiled, but his eyes never left the leather-bound hilt before him. “A
sword, small friend, is the extension of a man’s right hand... and the end point of his
heart.” He lifted the blade up higher, so that it caught a glimmer of light from one of the
tiny, high windows. “Just the same is Man the good right hand of God – Man is the sharp
executor of the Heart of God. Do you see?”
Suddenly he was leaning down, eyes bird-bright beneath shaggy brows. “Do you know
what this is?” His shaking finger indicated a bit of crimped, rusty metal bound into the
sword haft with golden wire.
“Tell me, Lord.” Towser knew perfectly well.
“This is the only nail of the true Execution Tree still remaining in Osten Ard.” Prester
John brought the hilt forward to his lips and tossed it, then held the cool metal against his
摘要：

TheDragonboneChairbyTadWilliamsBookOneofMemory,SorrowandThornForeword..................................................................................................................5PARTONE:SIMONMOONCALF.............................................................................6TheGrasshopperand...

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