The Fall of The Kings (Riverside) Read Free

melodies. I loved it.”
    —Neil Gaiman
    “What a perfectly splendid story, splendidly told, with great style and originality. A bow of deep appreciation to Ms. Kushner, and my gratitude!” —Anne McCaffrey
    “A book to introduce those who know nothing of the ballads to their rich and deep content . . . and intrigue those already familiar with them.” —Maddy Prior, lead singer for Steeleye Span
    “Lyrically written and humanly moving. Ellen Kushner’s treatment of the True Thomas legend is worthy to rank with those of Kipling and Cabell.”
    —Poul Anderson
    “Lovingly crafted, beautifully wrought—a jewel of a book.”
    —Judith Tarr
    “An earthy, witty, even mildly erotic book, as convincing in its depiction of faerie passion and prejudice as in its descriptions of the narrowly focused life of the Middle Ages.” — St. Louis Post-Dispatch
    “A happy blend of discreet scholarship and literary style . . . Kushner creates a lavish microcosm where riddles and runes and magical transformations govern.”
    — Publishers Weekly
    “Studded with adulterous noblemen, promiscuous courtiers and sensuous love scenes, the old fairy tale takes on a ribald contemporary feel under Kushner’s pen, which paradoxically is truer to the story’s original pre-Victorian bawdiness.”
    — The Boston Herald
    “Elegant and cozy. Witty and wise. Innocent and sensuous and, at times, downright sexy. Kushner’s Thomas the Rhymer does it all.” —Jane Yolen
    “What might seem all quaint, all harps, houppelandes, elf mounds and aristocracy, takes on a very human immediacy in Kushner’s skilled treatment. . . . Richly imagined scenes of Faerie, elegant and incongruous as the films of Cocteau. Kushner’s elves seek out humankind with a near-vampire hunger and a bittersweet desire. But at the end of Thomas the Rhymer we understand the attraction mortals hold for them.” — Locus
    “ Thomas the Rhymer is the real thing. It belongs on the same shelf with Lord Dunsany, James Branch Cabell, James Stephens, E. R. Eddison, Ursula K. Le Guin, and the rest.”
    — Aboriginal Science Fiction
    “Her Thomas takes on the life which the old ballads so often deny him and . . . really touches the heart.” —Andre Norton
    “Evocative, stirring, filled with life and color . . . lets us live for a while in those magical countries we’ve never seen but that we always knew must exist somewhere.”
    —Lisa Goldstein
    “A charming book, full of wit, imagination, the spiky sweetness of young love and the polished grain of old . . . more please!” —Suzy McKee Charnas
    “Splendid . . . touching and tender . . . there is great technical skill in the way Kushner recreates the lyrical atmosphere of a folk tale.” — Interzone
    “Relaxed and flowing, poetry counterpointing wit . . .
    It has a phantasmagorical quality . . . the enchantment is underpinned with tension and urgency . . . a tour de force . . . will surely endear itself to any who love old ballads, whiffs of faerie, and fine fantasy.”
    — New York Review of Science Fiction
    “If you were afraid that Kushner’s first novel, Swordspoint , was a flash in the pan, you can stop worrying. Thomas the Rhymer . . . stopped me in my tracks. Few books are this good! If you read fantasy at all, don’t miss this one; Kushner is setting up to be one of the most important fantasists alive! ” — Locus

F or in art there is no such thing as universal truth. A Truth in art is that whose contradictory is also true.
    OSCAR WILDE, The Truth of Masks
     
    What thou lovest well remains,
the rest is dross
     

What thou lov’st well shall not be reft from thee
What thou lov’st well is thy true heritage
     
    EZRA POUND, Pisan Cantos, LXXXI
     

PROLOGUE

    ASPLATTER OF RED ON A DISCARDED BOOT. MILKY BLUE glass lying shattered in a pool of water. Garlands of greenery swirling everywhere, with little eddies of leaves torn loose from them. And everywhere the sheets, torrents of white fabric lying