The Wide World's End

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Authors: James Enge

BOOK: The Wide World's End
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A
LSO BY
J
AMES
E
NGE

A TOURNAMENT OF SHADOWS

A Guile of Dragons
Wrath-Bearing Tree

The Wolf Age
This Crooked Way
Blood of Ambrose

Published 2015 by Pyr®, an imprint of Prometheus Books

The Wide World's End
. Copyright © 2015 by James Enge. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, digital, electronic, mechanical, photocopy­ing, recording, or otherwise, or conveyed via the Internet or a website without prior written permission of the publisher, ex­cept in the case of brief quotations em­bodied in critical articles and reviews.

Cover illustration ©Steve Stone
Cover design by Jacqueline Nasso Cooke

Cold Wind To Valhalla
Words and Music by Ian Anderson
Copyright © 1975 The Ian Anderson Group Of Companies, Ltd.
Copyright Renewed 2004
All Rights Administered by BMG Rights Management (US) LLC
All Rights Reserved. Used by Permission.
Reprinted by Permission of Hal Leonard Corporation
.

This is a work of fiction. Characters
, locales, and events portrayed in this novel either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.

Inquiries should be addressed to

Pyr

59 John Glenn Drive

Amherst, New York 14228

VOICE: 716–691–0133

FAX: 716–691–0137

WWW.PYRSF.COM

19 18 17 16 15    5 4 3 2 1

The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:

Enge, James, 1960-

The wide world's end / by James Enge.

pages ; cm. — (A tournament of shadows ; Book Three)

ISBN 978-1-61614-907-9 (pbk.) — ISBN 978-1-61614-908-6 (ebook)

I. Title.

PS3605.N43W53 2015

813'.6—dc23

2014035459

Printed in the United States of America

To Michael Korte
who stood with me once at the end of another world

Acknowledgments

A thousand thanks are due to Ian Anderson, for permission to quote his lyric from “Cold Wind to Valhalla.”

Ten thousand thanks to Lou Anders for his kindness, his patience, and his attentive reading that so improved my work. If you, patient reader, still don't like it, it's not his fault.

Contents

Invocation

P
ART
O
NE
: T
HE
W
INTER
W
AR

Chapter One: Lone Survivor

Chapter Two: Conversations in A Thousand Towers

Chapter Three: Knife

Chapter Four: Red and Gray

Chapter Five: Evening in the Gravehills

Chapter Six: The Hill of Storms

P
ART
T
WO
: R
ITES
OF S
PRING

Chapter One: What Really Happened

Chapter Two: Blood's Price

Chapter Three: Death of a Summoner

Chapter Four: The Last Station

Chapter Five: Evening in A Thousand Towers

Chapter Six: A Parting; a Meeting

Chapter Seven: A Needle of Sunlight

Chapter Eight: Vengeancer

Chapter Nine: The Lacklands

Chapter Ten: Scenes of the Crime

Chapter Eleven: Among the Vraids

Chapter Twelve: Intruder in the Death House

Chapter Thirteen: The Sea Road to Grarby

Chapter Fourteen: Empty Sock

Chapter Fifteen: The God and His Enemies

Chapter Sixteen: Dead Ends

Chapter Seventeen: Miracles of St. Danadhar

Chapter Eighteen: Second Chances

Chapter Nineteen: Enemies of the Enemy

Chapter Twenty: End of Deceit

Chapter Twenty-One: The Chains of the God

P
ART
T
HREE
: A C
OLD
S
UMMER

Chapter One: Endless Empire

Chapter Two: Fire, Gods, and a Stranger

Chapter Three: To Market, To Market

Chapter Four: The Flight of the
Viviana

Chapter Five: The Wreck of the
Viviana

Chapter Six: The Narrow Road to the Deep North

Chapter Seven: The Graith Divided

Chapter Eight: News from Home

Chapter Nine: Ghosts and Shadows

P
ART
F
OUR
: F
ALL

Chapter One: The Way Back

Sigil

A
PPENDICES

A. The Lands of Laent during the Ontilian Interregnum

B. The Gods of Laent

C. Calendar and Astronomy

D. The Wardlands and the Graith of Guardians

E. Note on Ambrosian Legend and Its Sources, Lost and Found

By a knight of ghosts and shadows
I summoned am to tourney
Three leagues beyond the wide world's end.
Methinks it is no journey.

—“Tom O'Bedlam's Song”

I
NVOCATION

I'll tell the tale, since you insist, but it won't be like the songs they sing. I saw much of what I'm about to tell with my own eyes, heard it with my own ears, felt it with my own heart. But I won't be saying I-I-I all the way through. I was a different person then. And any time you tell a story about yourself, it isn't about you, really. The teller is never the tale, or anyone in it.

Old Father Tyr, standing outside the world with Those-Who-Watch, shape my words like stones to build a bridge to the truth. Creator, guide my creation, which is yours also. Sustainer, give me the breath to complete it. Avenger, teach me when to end it, as you end all things in their time.

P
ART
O
NE

The Winter War

If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?

—Shelley, “Ode to the West Wind”

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