Read Online To Green Angel Tower, Volume 1 by Tad Williams - Free Book Online
Authors: Tad Williams
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that his coming was an important thing. Count Eolair, a Hernystirman,” 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 Hernystir 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 Deornoth, surprised.
Josua was silent for a moment. “So,” he said at last. “Tomorrow, on Saint Granis’ Day, perhaps we shall learn 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. 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
chains of Many Kinds
Princess Miriamele 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.
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 islands, 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 escaped those wardens, had she not? But how was she to escape 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
“Of course.” Josua stroked his chin thoughtfully.. “Any news of Hernystir 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 Deornoth, surprised.
Josua was silent for a moment. “So,” he said at last. “Tomorrow, on Saint Granis’ Day, perhaps we shall learn 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. 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
chains of Many Kinds
Princess Miriamele 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.
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 islands, 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 escaped those wardens, had she not? But how was she to escape 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
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