An army was passing, hundreds and perhaps thousands of shapes riding, walking — some even flying, or so it seemed: teeming shadows fluttered and soared above the great host, catching the moonglow on their wings like a handful of fish scales flung glittering into the air. But although Vansen could feel the tread of all those hooves and feet and paws and claws in his very bones, the host made no sound as it marched. Only the voices on the wind rose in acclaim as the great troop passed.

For Generations the misty Shadowline has marked the boundary between the lands of men and the lost northern lands that are the lair of their inhuman enemies, the ageless Qar. But now, after centuries of stability, that boundary line is moving outward, threatening to engulf the northernmost land in which humans still live: the kingdom of Southmarch. A magical darkness is growing — reaching foggy tendrils from beyond the Shadowline, and those unfortunate men caught in the sorcerous mists of the Qar either never return, or are forever changed.

“Williams opens another of the intricate, intriguing sagas that are his stock-in-trade. A page-turner.”
— Booklist

For centuries, the Eddon family has ruled in ancient, forbidding Southmarch Castle, guarding the border against the Qar’s return, but now this powerful royal line has been dealt a devastating blow. The monarch and head of the family, King Olin, is being held captive in a distant land, and it falls to his inexperienced heirs to lead their people in a time of growing danger and dread.

It is on the youngest Eddons, the twins Barrick and Briony, that the heaviest burdens fall. Crippled Barrick, haunted and sickly for most of his life, and tormented by inexplicable nightmares, must cling to his love of his family and especially of his sister, which may be all that can save him from madness or worse. Briony in turn can only watch helplessly while her brother grows more and more strange, even as she fights with strength she did not know she had to hold onto her family’s heritage in the face of secrets and perils that no living mortal could have imagined.

But as the Qar end their isolation of centuries and reach out to destroy humankind, Southmarch is also threatened by more familiar enemies. The Autarch, great, mad emperor of the south, whose ambitions are as wide as the world and whose power matches his ambition, is poised to strike. And other human despots with conquest-dreams of their own, not to mention spies and traitors within the Eddons’ own court, attempt to strike down the Eddons in their time of weakness. Then a brutal murder turns the kingdom upside down, and the twins discover they can trust no one — perhaps not even themselves.

Briony and Barrick Eddon, who in such evil times have only each other, may lose even that bond as darkness closes over them. As the Qar’s power reaches out across their land, will Southmarch Castle, the only home they’ve ever known, become in fact what it has long been called — Shadowmarch?

Praise for SHADOWMARCH

“The Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn series established Tad Williams’s preeminence in fantasy. Now, after an absence of more than a decade, the New York Times bestselling author has returned to high fantasy with his Shadowmarch trilogy. Exciting, ambitious, intricate, and insightful, Shadowmarch demonstrates that Williams is still America’s best high fantasist.”
— Cynthia Ward, Amazon.com editorial review

“In the impressive opening installment… Williams injects hope and humor into an end-of-the-world conflict that pits ‘the strange, pagan Qar,’ a race of fairy folk, against the humans who forced them behind the Shadowline. Packed with intriguing plot twists, this surreal fantasy takes the reader on a thrill ride from a haunted wood where madness dwells and the sun never rises, to drafty castles and adventures deep underground… Williams’ imagination is boundless.”
— Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)

“For readers who discovered Tad Williams through his Memory, Sorrow and Thorn fantasy cycle, the opening chapters of Shadowmarch will be an unreserved treat. Williams stage-manages an immense cast with remarkable deftness. There are no unrelieved heroes or one-dimensional villains anywhere in sight; every one of the characters, even those not accorded primary viewpoint status, emerges as a unique figure with his or her own virtues and vices… the first volume of Shadowmarch leaves readers with a broad, well-balanced portrait of a world on the brink of cataclysm. Tad Williams is already regarded as one of fantasy’s most skilled practitioners, and this latest work more than confirms that status.”
— Amazing Stories

© 2004 by Tad Williams
Book cover art by Michael Whelan
Mass Market Paperback: 816 pages
Publisher: DAW (September 5, 2006)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0756403596
ISBN-13: 978-0756403591