Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn

by Tad Williams

When the High King dies, a kitchen boy named Simon is swept into a quest involving three legendary swords, ancient races, and a war that could unmake the world. Tad Williams' trilogy is a foundational work of modern epic fantasy — the series George R.R. Martin has cited as a key influence.

54 characters, locations, and items in this world codex.

Characters

• Aditu sa-Jiriki — Jiriki's sister — young by Sithi standards, endlessly curious about mortals, and far more dangerous than her playful manner suggests.
• Amerasu Ship-Born — First Grandmother of the Sithi — ancient beyond mortal comprehension, the last living link to the Garden, murdered by Norn assassins before she could
• Binabik of Mintahoq — A troll Singing Man who rides a wolf, speaks in proverbs no one understands, and carries more loyalty and quiet courage in his small frame than most k
• Cadrach ec-Crannhyr — A drunk, a coward, a former scholar of the Art — a monk who sold forbidden knowledge to the worst people imaginable and can't stop running from what t
• Count Eolair of Nad Mullach — Hernystir's diplomat-warrior — the count who rides between kingdoms carrying messages no one wants to hear, fighting wars he'd rather negotiate, and m
• Doctor Morgenes — The castle physician who hides a scholar's vast knowledge behind a dottering old man's manner — Simon's true father figure, a Scrollbearer who dies bu
• Duke Isgrimnur of Elvritshalla — The Duke of Rimmersgard — a bear of a man with a tangled beard and a heart too big for the ugly wars he keeps getting dragged into, loyal to a fault a
• Earl Guthwulf of Utanyeat — The High King's Hand — blinded by Pryrates, driven mad by the sword Sorrow's call, wandering the lightless tunnels beneath the Hayholt like a ghost wh
• Father Strangyeard — Naglimund's one-eyed archivist — a gentle, stammering priest who discovers that his obsessive attention to old manuscripts may be the key to defeating
• Hakatri — Ineluki's elder brother — a Sithi prince whose burning by dragonfire set in motion the chain of grief and rage that would eventually wake the Storm Ki
• Ineluki the Storm King — A Sithi prince who forged a sword from grief and iron and died screaming at the top of a tower — then refused to stay dead, nursing ten thousand years
• Ingen Jegger — The Queen's Huntsman — a Black Rimmersman given immortality and a wolf's helm by the Norn Queen, the first mortal ever honored with a Norn title, and
• Jiriki i-Sa'onserei — A Sithi prince who owes a debt to a mortal boy — ancient, graceful, and dangerous, bound by a white arrow's honor to a friendship his people consider
• King Elias — The High King who sold the world to get his wife back — a warrior-prince broken by grief, manipulated by a sorcerer, and bound to a dead Sithi prince'
• King Lluth of Hernystir — The aging King of Hernystir — a pagan ruler in a changing world, killed defending his kingdom when the Storm King's war came to his door.
• Likimeya — Protector of the Sithi — Jiriki's mother, Amerasu's granddaughter, the iron will holding her fading people together while the world demands they choos
• Prester John — The king who built the peace — a legendary warrior who united Osten Ard, claimed a dragon-kill that wasn't his, and died leaving a kingdom held togeth
• Prince Josua Lackhand — A one-handed prince who never wanted to lead anything — thrust into rebellion against his own brother, haunted by self-doubt so deep it's practically
• Princess Maegwin — Hernystir's princess — tall, awkward, fierce, and convinced the gods are speaking to her, which might be divine inspiration or might be the Dream Road
• Princess Miriamele — A princess who runs away from her father's crumbling court disguised as a boy — carrying a bow, a dead mother's grief, and the unbearable knowledge th
• Pryrates — The red priest with no eyebrows and no conscience — a sorcerer who sold his king to a dead Sithi prince, murdered his way through the League of the Sc
• Rachel the Dragon — Mistress of Chambermaids — the woman who raised Simon, terrorized scullions, and kept the Hayholt clean through war, sorcery, and the end of the world
• Simon Snowlock — A castle scullion who stumbles from the kitchens into the war that will remake the world — marked by dragon's blood, haunted by dreams he didn't ask f
• Sir Camaris-sa-Vinitta — The greatest knight who ever lived — thought dead for decades, discovered alive and mute, carrying a sword that wants to use him and a secret that cou
• Sisqinanamook — Binabik's betrothed — a Qanuc huntress from Mintahoq, fierce and practical, waiting for a troll who keeps running off to save the world instead of com
• Skali Sharp-Nose — A Rimmersgard traitor who sided with Elias and invaded Hernystir — the kind of man who makes other Rimmersmen ashamed to share a country.
• Sludig — A young Rimmersman soldier — blond, stubborn, and furious about the Norns in a way that keeps him alive when smarter men would quit.
• Tiamak of the Wran — A Wrannaman scholar who doesn't fit his swamp or the wider world — the League of the Scroll's youngest member, caught between two cultures and useful
• Utuk'ku Silvermask — The Norn Queen — ten thousand years old, born in the Garden itself, ruling from behind a silver mask over a people she has shaped into an instrument o
• Valada Geloë — The witch of Aldheorte — last of an ancient lineage, a shapeshifter who walks as owl and woman, blunt as an axe and twice as useful in a crisis.
• Vorzheva — A Thrithings horsewoman who followed a one-handed prince into rebellion and exile — fierce, beautiful, trapped between the open grasslands she came fr

Locations

• Aldheorte Forest — The Old Heart — a primeval forest covering central Osten Ard, hiding Sithi ruins, dream-walking witches, and the last settlement of a dying immortal r
• Asu'a — The fallen city of the Sithi — once the most beautiful of the Nine Cities, now buried beneath the Hayholt, its white marble walls and singing towers e
• Da'ai Chikiza — Tree of the Singing Winds — an abandoned Sithi city of impossible grace, drowned by a river that changed course, its towers and walkways crumbling int
• Erchester — The capital city of Erkynland — sprawling beneath the Hayholt's walls, where merchants, soldiers, and commoners live in the shadow of a castle that's
• Erkynland — The central kingdom of Osten Ard — heartland of the High King's realm, torn apart by civil war between two brothers and a winter that isn't natural.
• Green Angel Tower — The last Sithi tower — impossibly tall, impossibly white, crowned by a bronze angel that watches the east, and hiding in its foundations the place whe
• Hernystir — The western kingdom — mountainous, pagan, fiercely independent, and the first realm to fall when the Storm King's war begins.
• Jao e-Tinukai'i — Boat on the Ocean of Trees — the last living Sithi city, woven into the deep forest like a dream that refuses to end, beautiful and fading and nearly
• Kwanitupul — The drowned city — a half-sunken Nabbanai port where the dispossessed wash up, empires go to rot, and a mute old man ran an inn for decades without an
• Meremund — The port city on the Gleniwent — where Miriamele grew up, where Prince Elias held court before becoming king, and where the river meets the sea.
• Nabban — The southern empire that once ruled the known world — now a proud duchy nursing imperial memories, political intrigue, and the conviction that civiliz
• Naglimund — The nail-fort — Josua's stronghold at the foot of the Wealdhelm, surrounded by iron spikes the Sithi can't bear to touch, destroyed in the war's first
• Nakkiga — Mask of Tears — the Norn city carved inside a mountain, its gates never breached, its queen ten thousand years old, and its hatred of the mortal world
• Rimmersgard — The frozen north — land of the Rimmersmen, first line of defense against the Norns, and the kingdom that pays in blood for every mile between civiliza
• Sesuad'ra — The Stone of Farewell — where the Sithi and Norns parted ways, now the last refuge of the alliance against the Storm King, thrumming with ancient powe
• The Hayholt — The castle at the center of the world — built on the bones of a Sithi palace, seat of mortal kings for five centuries, and hiding more secrets in its
• The Wran — The great swamp — homeland of the Wrannamen, a vast marshy wilderness that the rest of Osten Ard considers barely civilized and absolutely beneath not
• Yiqanuc — The roof of the world — homeland of the Qanuc trolls, a mountain realm of ice and wind where survival is a daily negotiation with gravity and temperat

Items

• Jingizu / Sorrow — Sorrow — a sword of witchwood and black iron that should not exist, forged by a grieving Sithi prince using forbidden magic that killed him, named in
• Minneyar / Bright-Nail — Memory — the first of the three Great Swords, forged from a ship's keel by Dwarrow hands, stolen by a king, reforged with a dragon-slayer's bone and a
• Naidel — Josua's sword — a long, slender blade that is not a Great Sword but carries its own significance: the weapon of a reluctant prince, wielded left-hande
• The Dragonbone Chair — The throne of the High King — made from the bones of the dragon Shurakai, a seat of power built on a lie and a dead monster, and the symbol of everyth
• Thorn — The sky-sword — forged by the Niskies from a fallen star using the Words of Making, its hilt shaped like the holy Execution Tree, and cursed with a wi

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