DAW Books Presents
The Finest in Imaginative Fiction by
TAD WILLIAMS
MEMORY, SORROW AND THORN
THE DRAGONBONE CHAIR
STONE OF FAREWELL
TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER
THE LAST KING OF OSTEN ARD
THE WITCHWOOD CROWN
EMPIRE OF GRASS*
THE HEART OF WHAT WAS LOST
* * *
THE BOBBY DOLLAR NOVELS
THE DIRTY STREETS OF HEAVEN
HAPPY HOUR IN HELL
SLEEPING LATE ON JUDGEMENT DAY
SHADOWMARCH
SHADOWMARCH
SHADOWPLAY
SHADOWRISE
SHADOWHEART
OTHERLAND
CITY OF GOLDEN SHADOW
RIVER OF BLUE FIRE
MOUNTAIN OF BLACK GLASS
SEA OF SILVER LIGHT
TAILCHASER’S SONG
THE WAR OF THE FLOWERS
*Coming soon from DAW
Copyright © 2017 by Tad Williams.
All Rights Reserved.
Jacket illustration by Michael Whelan.
Jacket design by G-Force Design.
Maps by Isaac Stewart.
DAW Book Collectors No. 1761.
Published by DAW Books, Inc.
375 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014.
All characters and events in this book are fictitious.
Any resemblance to persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.
The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal, and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage the electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.
Ebook ISBN: 9780698191488
DAW TRADEMARK REGISTERED
U.S. PAT. AND TM. OFF. AND FOREIGN COUNTRIES
—MARCA REGISTRADA
HECHO EN U.S.A.
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Dedication
After much consideration I’ve decided that this book really must be dedicated to the three people who have done the most over the years to lead me back to Osten Ard.
My publishers Betsy Wollheim and Sheila Gilbert have politely nudged me for ages, reminding me approximately every seventeen minutes that everyone else but me was certain that the prophecy at the birth of Josua’s and Vorzheva’s twins was meant to set up a sequel, and that they’d really love to see me write it. (Actually they were quite patient. But they did remind me from time to time. Occasionally they threatened me with sticks.) And their nudging came not just from business reasons, but also because they thought I could do something wonderful with it.
My wife and partner Deborah Beale also kept after me over the years with equal sweetness and patience, being sensitive to my process (which for peak efficiency requires months at a time spent almost entirely napping) while asking me at courteous intervals why exactly I couldn’t ever write a sequel to Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn.
Prompted by one such conversation, I finally sat down to think carefully about why I couldn’t do it. The reason had always been that I needed to have a story first, otherwise it would feel as uninspired to me as opening a franchise operation. Every book starts as a story for me—but I didn’t have another Osten Ard story inside me. So in my mind I shot down possibility after possibility—lame, derivative, self-parodying—because I wanted to show Deb (and by extension, everybody who’d ever asked me about a sequel) why a sequel just wasn’t going to happen. But by the time a long day or so of thinking had passed, I realized I did have a story to tell, and by the time I described it to Deb I was getting pretty excited about it. Not too many weeks later, I was actually writing it.
There are also about nine hundred other ways Deb has supported this book, from reading and analyzing the manuscript in draft (with her usual acumen) to generating publicity from our dining table like P. T. Barnum in a bathrobe. Figuratively speaking, her fingerprints are all over the book.
Sheila and Betsy also contributed in many, many ways from the publishing end, including their usual loving attention to editing the manuscript in process and to creating the look of the thing.
So I dedicate this book to all three of them—Sheila and Betsy and Deborah.
Betsy and Sheila, thanks for everything, your friendship by no means the least. I’m really happy (and, I’ll admit it, a bit damp-eyed and sentimental) to be sharing this particular publication with you—finally.
Deborah, you are the one. For these and so very many other things, thank you.
Contents
Also by Tad Williams
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Author’s Note
Map
Foreword
Part One: Widows Chapter 1: The Glorious
Chapter 2: The Finest Tent on the Frostmarch
Chapter 3: Conversation with a Corpse-Giant
Chapter 4: Brother Monarchs
Chapter 5: Awake
Chapter 6: An Aversion to Widows
Chapter 7: Island of Bones
Chapter 8: A Meeting on Lantern Bridge
Chapter 9: Heart of the Kynswood
Chapter 10: Hymns of the Lightless
Chapter 11: The Third Duke
Chapter 12: The Bloody Sand
Chapter 13: Lady Alva’s Tale
Chapter 14: Ghosts of the Garden
Chapter 15: Atop the Holy Tree
Chapter 16: A Layer of Fresh Snow
Chapter 17: White Hand
Chapter 18: A Bad Book
Chapter 19: The Moon’s Token
Chapter 20: His Bright Gem
Chapter 21: Crossroad
Chapter 22: Death Songs
Chapter 23: Testament of the White Hand
Part Two: Orphans Chapter 24: Terrible Flame
Chapter 25: Example of a Dead Hedgehog
Chapter 26: The Inner Council
Chapter 27: Noontide at The Quarely Maid
Chapter 28: Cradle Songs of Red Pig Lagoon
Chapter 29: Brown Bones and Black Statues
Chapter 30: The Slow Game
Chapter 31: A High, Dark Place
Chapter 32: Rosewater and Balsam
Chapter 33: Secrets and Promises
Chapter 34: Feeding the Familiar
Chapter 35: The Man with the Odd Smile
Chapter 36: A Foolish Dream
Chapter 37: Two Bedroom Conversations
Chapter 38: The Factor’s Ship
Chapter 39: A Grassland Wedding
Chapter 40: Watching Like God
Part Three: Exiles Chapter 41: Hern’s Horde
Chapter 42: Forest Music
Chapter 43: Into Deeper Shadows
Chapter 44: Charms and Tokens
Chapter 45: A Nighttime Sun
Chapter 46: River Man
Chapter 47: Hidden Chambers
Chapter 48: The Little Boats
Chapter 49: Blood as Black as Night
Chapter 50: Several Matters of State
Chapter 51: Stolen Scales
Chapter 52: Homecoming
Chapter 53: Their Masters’ Folly
Chapter 54: Voices Unheard, Faces Unseen
Afterword
Appendix
Acknowledgments
It’s always extremely hard to properly acknowledge all the people who contributed to a book, but with this one it’s even harder, because so very many people kindly contributed their time and effort to make it possible.
Here are as many of them as I can be certain about, since the process started more than two years ago. If you’re one of the deserving and I failed to mention you here, definitely consider yourself thanked, but please write to me so I can make sure to get a proper acknowledgment into the next book.
First off, my sincere gratitude to all who took the time to read a very long, very early manuscript and give me their impressions and suggestions, or who worked to make sure the index was comprehensive, accurate, and also jibed with the previous books. Each name represents hours of work that I didn’t have to do!
Charlotte Cogle; Ron Hyde; Ylva von Löhneysen; Eva Maderbacher; Devi Pillai; Cindy Squires; Linda Van Der Pal; Angela Welchel; and Cindy Yan.
You guys are my heroes. Thanks and thanks and thanks.
As always, I need to mention those who have done the most for me for the longest. The crucial help that my wife Deborah Beale and my publishers Sheila Gilbert and Betsy Wollheim provided for this book is discussed in the dedication, but I wanted to say again how much they rock my world.
My agent Matt Bialer has been his usual smart, helpful, and amusing self throughout this process. You’re in a rut, Matt.
Lisa Tveit has managed no matter what befell to keep my website (and other online aspects of my career) wonderful and working—as always, thank you so much, Lisa.
MaryLou Capes-Platt, who is copyediting the new Osten Ard books, is both a stern taskmistress and a charming muse, commenting in the margins of the proofs, giving me happy little reactions when I do well or gently pointing out when my writing is sloppy, confusing, or otherwise not up to par. Her sharp eye and wit, and her kind heart have strongly influenced the final version of the story.
Isaac Stewart has not only contributed brilliant new maps, but spent long, difficult hours trying to get all the details exactly right so that they match the geography from the earlier books as well. (He had help with this, but I’ll get to that in a moment.) The results are obvious—and gorgeous.
Michael Whelan’s doing the paintings for these books—’nuff said, really—and as always, he worked really, really hard to take what’s in the story and expand it with his great talent into more than I could ever have imagined.
Joshua Starr has labored long and hard to keep me on schedule and (more or less) out of trouble—as have many other people at DAW Books and Penguin Random House. Josh makes coping with the eye-crossing minutiae of publication a pleasure. Many thanks, Josh!
And my British and German publishers, Oliver Johnson at Hodder & Stoughton and Stephan Askani at Klett-Cotta, read and supported this newest Hideously Long Tad Book with their usual kindness and savvy. I am very fortunate in my publishers worldwide.
And of course I must mention those most loyal and kind friends a writer could have, the gang on the tadwilliams.com message board, many of whom are already listed here by name—but by no means all. Let’s party in the Mint, dudes. I’m buying.
Last, but decidedly not least, I have to thank two people who have put in so much work on this return to Osten Ard that I hardly know where to begin to praise them.
Ron Hyde has basically become the official Osten Ard Archivist, not just reading and consulting on the manuscript, but putting in many hours with Isaac Stewart and the maps too, as well as answering questions from me at all times of the day or night, because I wrote the original books thirty years ago, and Ron knows the details of the land and its history better than I do. Trying to keep all the details consistent in a million words written that long ago (and a background even larger, also constructed back then) with what will probably be another million words when I finish the new ones, is a Herculean task. Without help like his, I’d be writing this acknowledgment about two years from now.
Ylva von Löhneysen has also gone above the call of duty and probably even sanity to help this book come into existence, doing many of the same things as Ron and making other contributions of her own, reading all the drafts, commenting extensively, and her own vast knowledge of Osten Ard to help keep me on the right track. (Yes, Ylva also knows more about my creation than I do.) She sent me notes constantly during the rewrite process with reactions to this or that scene she had just read, helping me keep my courage (and page production) up, not to mention aiding with ideas and suggestions that, like Ron’s and the others mentioned above, in many cases directly influenced the version of The Witchwood Crown you hold in your hands.
I salute you all. I could not have done it without you. May blessings shower upon you.
Author’s Note
Many of you reading this are already aware that this book is part of a return to Osten Ard, a world I created in an earlier set of books. If you weren’t aware, don’t panic, but read the following:
You do not need to have read the earlier works to enjoy the new series—it takes place some three decades later, and I have done my best to explain crucial pieces of information within the current story—but of course you may want to go back and read them anyway. (I did. I had to, to write the new ones.) You can find a synopsis of the previous series, Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn in several places, including the DAW Books website, dawbooks.com, or on my own website, tadwilliams.com.
There will NOT be a test.
The first series, Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, consists of these books:
The Dragonbone Chair
Stone of Farewell
To Green Angel Tower (divided into Part One and Part Two in the mass market editions)
The new books, titled as a whole The Last King of Osten Ard, will be the following:
The Witchwood Crown
Empire of Grass
The Navigator’s Children
as well as two short novels not directly part of the new story, but with many of the same characters and historical events from the other books. The first of these, The Heart of What Was Lost, is already published. The second, tentatively called The Shadow of Things to Come, is not yet written, but will probably be published sometime before The Navigator’s Children.
Foreword
Rider and mount glided down the slope through stands of Kynswood trees, larches, shiny-leaved beeches, and oaks festooned with dangling catkins. Silent and surprising, the pair appeared first in one beam of bright sunlight then another at a speed that would have startled any merely mortal eye. The rider’s pale cloak seemed to catch and reflect the colors all around, so that an idle or distracted glance would have seen only a hint of movement, imagined only wind.
The warmth of the day pleased Tanahaya. The music of forest insects pleased her too, the whirring of grasshoppers and the hum of busy honeymakers. Even though the smell of the mortal habitation was strong and this patch of forest only a momentary refuge, she spoke silent words of gratitude for an interlude of happiness.
Praises, Mother Sun. Praises for the growing-scents. Praise for the bees and their goldendance.
She was young by the standards of her people, with only a few centuries upon the broad earth. Tanahaya of Shisae’ron had spent many of those years in the saddle, first as messenger for her clan’s leader, Himano of the Flowering Hills, then later, after she had made her worth known to the House of Year-Dancing, performing tasks for her friends in that clan. But this errand to the mortals’ capital seemed as if it might be the most perilous of all her journeys, and was certainly the strangest. She hoped she was strong and clever enough to fulfill the trust of those who had sent her.
Tanahaya had been described as wise beyond her years, but
she still could not understand the importance her friends placed on the affairs of mortals—especially the short-lived creatures who inhabited this particular part of the world. That was even more inexplicable now, when it seemed clear to her that the Zida’ya could no longer trust any mortals at all.
Still, there was the castle she had been seeking, its highest roofs just visible through the trees. Looking at its squat towers and heavy stone walls, it was hard for Tanahaya to believe that Asu’a, the greatest and most beautiful city of her people, had once stood here. Could anything of their old home be left in this pile of clumsy stone that men called the Hayholt?
I must not think of what might be true, of what I fear or what I hope. Horse and rider moved down the slope. I must see only what is. Otherwise I fail my oath and I fail my friends.
She stopped at the edge of the trees. “Tsa, Spidersilk,” she whispered, and the horse stood in silence as Tanahaya listened. New noises wafted up the slope to her, as well as a new and not entirely welcome scent, the animal tang of unwashed mortals. Tanahaya clicked her tongue and Spidersilk stepped aside into shadow.
She had a hand on the hilt of her sword when a golden-haired girl dashed into the sunlight, a basket of winter flowers swinging in one hand, daffodils and snowdrops and royal purple crocuses. Tanahaya’s senses told her the child was not alone, so she stayed hidden in the shadows between trees as a half-dozen armed soldiers followed the child in gasping, clanking pursuit. After a moment, Tanahaya relaxed: it was clear the mortals did not mean to harm the little one. Still, she was surprised that mortal soldiers were so heedless of danger: she could have put arrows in most of them before they even realized they were not alone in the Kynswood.
A mortal woman in a hat with a brim as wide as a wagon’s wheel followed the armored men into the clearing. “Lillia!” the woman cried, then stopped and bent to catch her breath. “Do not run, child! Oh, you are wicked! Wicked to make us chase you!”
The child stopped, eyes wide. “But Auntie Rhoner, look! Berries!”