Stone of Farewell

Book Two of Memory, Sorrow and Thorn

I know it pains you to hear me speak so, Willow-switch,” Amerasu said. “But you are dearest of all my young ones and you are strong. You can hear truth.” She shifted slowly in her chair, long-fingered hand settling on the breast of her white robe. “You, too, manchild, have known loss. That is in your face. But though every loss is grave, the lives as well as the losses of mortals appear and fade as swiftly as the seasons turn the leaves. I do not mean to be cruel. Neither do I seek pity—but not you or any other mortal has seen the dry centuries roll past, the hungry millennia, seen the very light and color sucked out of your world until nothing remains but juiceless memories.”

Stone of Farewell by Tad Williams

Hardcover 1990
Paperback 1991

In this mesmerizing sequel to THE DRAGONBONE CHAIR, best selling author Tad Williams returns us to the troubled realms of humans, Qanuc trolls, and Sithi, as the dark magic and terrifying minions of the undead Sithi ruler, Ineluki the Storm King, spread their seemingly undefeatable evil across the realm of Osten Ard.

As the very land is blighted by the power of Ineluki’s wrath, the tattered remnants of a once-proud human army flee in search of a last sanctuary and rallying point — the Stone of Farewell, a place shrouded in mystery and ancient sorrow. And the widely scattered surviving members of the League of the Scroll desperately struggle to fulfill missions which will take them from the fallen citadels of humans to the hidden mountain caves of the Qanuc…across storm-tormented waters to discover the truth behind an almost-forgotten legend…through a forest alive with dangers no human could hope to brave…to the secret heartland of the Sithi, where the near-immortals must at last decide whether to ally with the race of men in a final war against those of their own blood…

In this momentous second volume of the trilogy critics have hailed as: “The fantasy equivalent of War and Peace,” and “A grand fantasy on a scale approaching Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings,” all the promise of THE DRAGONBONE CHAIR is fulfilled in a novel that sweeps readers in the midst of a devastating war fueled by sorceries which will distort the very fabric of time and space.

“An epic tale of the struggle of good against evil…the struggle between being and unbeing…an exquisite rendering of the conflict between forces of light and darkness.
— San Francisco Chronicle Book Review

“Williams is our Tolkien of the Eighties…”
— Fear

Details
Hardcover: 589 pages
Publisher: DAW Hardcover; 1st Edition (August 7, 1990)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0886774357
ISBN-13: 978-0886774356