Table of Contents
DAW Books Presents
The Finest in Imaginative Fiction by
TAD WILLIAMS
SHADOWMARCH
SHADOWMARCH
SHADOWPLAY
SHADOWRISE
SHADOWHEART
TAILCHASERS SONG
THE WAR OF THE FLOWERS
MEMORY, SORROW AND THORN
THE DRAGONBONE CHAIR
STONE OF FAREWELL
TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER
OTHERLAND
CITY OF GOLDEN SHADOW
RIVER OF BLUE FIRE
MOUNTAIN OF BLACK GLASS
SEA OF SILVER LIGHT
Our children Connor and Devon still think that getting a grown-up book dedicated to them instead of one of our more kid-oriented books is kind of a rip-off. I told them that one day they will be grown-ups just like us, but they refuse to believe anything so horrid and unfair could happen to such nice children.
(Itll be fun watching them learn better. Actually, itll be fun watching them no matter what.) Remember, you wonderful beasts, we love you hugelybut dont make me come back there.
Acknowledgments
Betsy Wollheim and Sheila Gilbert and everyone at DAW Books receive my overwhelming gratitude as usual as we finally steer this monstrous story into port. I also want to thank our fabulous assistant Dena Chavez and my wicked-cool agent Matt Bialer, as well as the lovely Lisa Tveit who has put in tons of work making our website, www.tadwilliams.com, a fun and informative place to visit. Please come and join us there, or see me make a fool of myself on Facebook at www.facebook.com/tad.williams. Dont worry. Nobody has died yet from too much Tad, so you probably wont be the first.
Super, extra-big thanks and love also go to my awesome wife Deborah Beale, who put in a staggering amount of work helping me revise the late drafts of this book when she could have been doing something else fun, or at least non-Tad-related.
Authors Note
Because of repeated questions and occasional physical assaults (yes, the bruises are healing nicely, thank you) I have included as a second appendix a genuine historical document which lists and names most of the principal gods of the Trigonate faith and the names by which other peoples of Eion and Xand call them.
Synopsis of Shadowmarch
Southmarch Castle, the last human city in the north, has stood for two hundred years as a bulwark against the immortal Qarthe fairy folk who have twice fought wars against humanity. This is a bad time for Southmarch, a country whose king, OLIN EDDON, is being held for ransom in another kingdom, leaving only his three children, KENDRICK, the oldest, and the twins BARRICK and BRIONY, to watch over his land and people. Making this uncertain time worse, the Shadowlinethe boundary between human lands and the foggy, eternally twilit domain of the Qarhas begun to move closer to Southmarch.
Then Kendrick is murdered in his own castle. SHASO DAN-HEZA, Briony and Barricks mentor, is imprisoned for the crime and it seems his guilt is undeniable. Briony does not feel entirely convinced but she is distracted by many other concerns, not least the problems of trying to rule alongside Barrick, her sickly, angry twin.
In fact, matters are growing more confused and more dangerous in Southmarch every day. CHERT and OPAL, two Funderlings, a dwarfish folk who live beneath Southmarch, see a child abandoned by mysterious riders from the far side of the Shadowline. The boy is one of the Big Folkan ordinary sized humanbut they give him the Funderling name FLINT and take him home to their town under the castle. Meanwhile, CHAVEN, the royal physician, finds his own attention absorbed by a mysterious mirror, and the even more mysterious entity that seems to live inside it.
Princess Briony places much of the blame for her older brothers death on FERRAS VANSEN, the captain of the royal guard, who she thinks should have done more to protect him. Vansen has an affection for Briony Eddon that goes beyond the bounds of both propriety and good sense. He can only accept mutely when, in part as punishment, she sends him out to the site of a reported attack across the Shadowline by the Qar.
YNNIR, the blind king of those same Qar, has initiated a complicated strategy concerning the castle and its ruling family; dumping the boy Flint near Southmarch was only the first part. That act is already having repercussions: at Kendricks funeral the Eddon childrens great aunt, DUCHESS MEROLANNA, sees the boy Flint and almost faints. She is positive she has seen her own illegitimate child, whose birth was kept secret but who disappeared more than fifty years earlier.
Ynnir is not the only one of the Qar with complicated plans. LADY YASAMMEZ, one of the most powerful of the fairies, has gathered an army and is marching across the Shadowline to attack the mortal lands.
Meanwhile, Barrick and Briony find themselves in an ever stranger situation. Their chief counselor, AVIN BRONE, tells them that the TOLLYS, the most powerful rival family in the March Kingdoms, have been entertaining agents of SULEPIS, the AUTARCH OF XIS, the malevolent southern god-king whose goal seems to be to conquer the whole of the northern continent as he as already enslaved the south. (We have already seen him and his apparent madness in his treatment of QINNITAN, an innocent temple novice whom he has declared his newest wife and moved into the harem called the Seclusion. Strangely, though, the only attention she receives there is a kind of religious instruction and a series of disturbing potions the priests force her to drink.)
Back in the northern continent, things get worse. Ferras Vansen and his troop find themselves lured onto the wrong side of the Shadowline. Several of the soldiers are killed by various creatures, and before they find their way back to the lands of men, Vansen sees the army that Yasammez has mustered heading for the March Kingdoms.
