the master of iria of westpool, birch, didn't own the old house, but he did own the central and richest lands of the old domain. his father, more interested in vines and orchards than in quarrels with his relatives, had left birch a thriving property. birch hired men to manage the farms and wineries and cooperage and cartage and all, while he enjoyed his wealth. he married the timid daughter of the younger brother of the lord of wayfirth, and took infinite pleasure in thinking that his daughters were of noble blood.
the fashion of the time among the nobility was to have a wizard in their service, a genuine wizard with a staff and a grey cloak, trained on the isle of the wise, and so the master of iria of westpool got himself a wizard from roke. he was surprised how easy it was to get one, if you paid the price.
the young man, called ivory, did not actually have his staff and cloak yet; he explained that he was to be made wizard when he went back to roke. the masters had sent him out in the world to gain experience, for all the classes in the school cannot give a man the experience he needs to be a wizard. birch looked a little dubious at this, and ivory reassured him that his training on roke had equipped him with every kind of magic that could be needed in iria of westpool on way. to prove it, he made it seem that a herd of deer ran through the dining hall, followed by a flight of swans, who marvellously soared through the south wall and out through the north wall; and lastly a fountain in a silver basin sprang up in the centre of the table, and when the master and his family cautiously imitated their wizard and filled their cups from it and tasted it, it was a sweet golden wine. "wine of the andrades," said the young man with a modest, complacent smile. by then the wife and daughters were entirely won over. and birch thought the young man was worth his fee, although his own silent preference was for the dry red fanian of his own vineyards, which got you drunk if you drank enough, while this yellow stuff was just honeywater.
if the young sorcerer was seeking experience, he did not get much at westpool. whenever birch had guests from kembermouth or from neighboring domains, the herd of deer, the swans, and the fountain of golden wine made their appearance. he also worked up some very pretty fireworks for warm spring evenings. but if the managers of the orchards and vineyards came to the master to ask if his wizard might put a spell of increase on the pears this year or maybe charm the black rot off the fanian vines on the south hill, birch said, "a wizard of roke doesn't lower himself to such stuff. go tell the village sorcerer to earn his keep!" and when the youngest daughter came down with a wasting cough, birch's wife dared not trouble the wise young man about it, but sent humbly to rose of old iria, asking her to come in by the back door and maybe make a poultice or sing a chant to bring the girl back to health.
ivory never noticed that the girl was ailing, nor the pear trees, nor the vines. he kept himself to himself, as a man of craft and learning should. he spent his days riding about the countryside on the pretty black mare that his employer had given him for his use when he made it clear that he had not come from roke to trudge about on foot in the mud and dust of country byways.
on his rides, he sometimes passed an old house on a hill among great oaks. when he turned off the village lane up the hill, a pack of scrawny, evil-mouthed dogs came pelting and bellowing down at him. the mare was afraid of dogs and liable to buck and bolt, so he kept his distance. but he had an eye for beauty, and liked to look at the old house dreaming away in the dappled light of the early summer afternoons.
he asked birch about the place. "that's iria," birch said - "old iria, i mean to say. i own the house by rights. but after a century of feuds and fights over it, my granddad let the place go to settle the quarrel. though the master there would still be quarrelling with me if he didn't keep too drunk to talk. haven't seen the old man for years. he had a daughter, i think."
"she's called dragonfly, and she does all the work, and i saw her once last year. she's tall, and as beautiful as a flowering tree," said the youngest daughter, rose, who was busy crowding a lifetime of keen observation into the fourteen years that were all she was going to have for it. she broke off, coughing. her mother shot an anguished, yearning glance at the wizard. surely he would hear that cough, this time? he smiled at young rose, and the mother's heart lifted. surely he wouldn't smile so if rose's cough was anything serious?
"nothing to do with us, that lot at the old place," birch said, displeased. the tactful ivory asked no more. but he wanted to see the girl as beautiful as a flowering tree. he rode past old iria regularly. he tried stopping in the village at the foot of the hill to ask questions, but there was nowhere to stop and nobody would answer questions. a wall-eyed witch took one look at him and scuttled into her hut. if he went up to the house he would have to face the pack of hellhounds and probably a drunk old man. but it was worth the chance, he thought; he was bored out of his wits with the dull life at westpool, and was never slow to take a risk. he rode up the hill till the dogs were yelling around him in a frenzy, snapping at the mare's legs. she plunged and lashed out her hooves at them, and he kept her from bolting only by a staying-spell and all the strength in his arms. the dogs were leaping and snapping at his own legs now, and he was about to let the mare have her head when somebody came among the dogs shouting curses and beating them back with a strap. when he got the lathered, gasping mare to stand still, he saw the girl as beautiful as a flowering tree. she was very tall, very sweaty, with big hands and feet and mouth and nose and eyes, and a head of wild dusty hair. she was yelling, "down! back to the house, you carrion, you vile sons of bitches!" to the whining, cowering dogs.
ivory clapped his hand to his right leg. a dog's tooth had ripped his breeches at the calf, and a trickle of blood came through.
"is she hurt?" the woman said. "oh, the traitorous vermin!" she was stroking down the mare's right foreleg. her hands came away covered with blood-streaked horse sweat. "there, there," she said. the brave girl, the brave heart." the mare put her head down and shivered all over with relief. "what did you keep her standing there in the middle of the dogs for?" the woman demanded furiously. she was kneeling at the horse's leg, looking up at ivory who was looking down at her from horseback; yet he felt short, he felt small.
she did not wait for an answer. "i'll walk her up," she said, standing up, and put out her hand for the reins. ivory saw that he was supposed to dismount. he did so, asking, "is it very bad?" and peering at the horse's leg, seeing only bright, bloody foam.
"come on then, my love," the young woman said, not to him. the mare followed her trustfully. they set off up the rough path round the hillside to an old stone and brick stableyard, empty of horses, inhabited only by nesting swallows that swooped about over the roofs calling their quick gossip.
"keep her quiet," said the young woman, and left him holding the mare's reins in this deserted place. she returned after some time lugging a heavy bucket, and set to sponging off the mare's leg. "get the saddle off her," she said, and her tone held the unspoken, impatient, "you fool!" ivory obeyed, half-annoyed by this crude giantess and half-intrigued. she did not put him in mind of a flowering tree at all, but she was in fact beautiful, in a large, fierce way. the mare submitted to her absolutely. when she said, "move your foot!" the mare moved her foot. the woman wiped her down all over, put the saddle blanket back on her, and made sure she was standing in the sun. "she'll be all right," she said. "there's a gash, but if you'll wash it with warm salt water four or five times a day, it'll heal clean, i'm sorry." she said the last honestly, though grudgingly, as if she still wondered how he could have let his mare stand there to be assaulted, and she looked straight at him for the first time. her eyes were clear orange-brown, like dark topaz or amber. they were strange eyes, right on a level with his own.
"i'm sorry too," he said, trying to speak carelessly, lightly.
"she's irian of westpool's mare. you're the wizard, then?"
he bowed. "ivory, of havnor great port, at your service. may i -"
she interrupted. "i thought you were from roke."
"i am," he said, his composure regained.
she stared at him with those strange eyes, as unreadable as a sheep's, he thought. then she burst out: 'you lived there? you studied there? do you know the archmage?"
"yes," he said with a smile. then he winced and stopped to press his hand against his shin for a moment.
"are you hurt too?"
"it's nothing," he said. in fact, rather to his annoyance, the cut had stopped bleeding. the woman's gaze returned to his face.
"what is it - what is it like - on roke?"
ivory went, limping only very slightly, to an old mounting-block nearby and sat down on it. he stretched his leg, nursing the torn place, and looked up at the woman. "it would take a long time to tell you what roke is like," he said. "but it would be my pleasure."
"the man's a wizard, or nearly," said rose the witch, "a roke wizard! you must not ask him questions!" she was more than scandalized, she was frightened.
"he doesn't mind," dragonfly reassured her. "only he hardly ever really answers."
"of course not!"
"why of course not?"
"because he's a wizard! because you're a woman, with no art, no knowledge, no learning!"
"you could have taught me! you never would!"
rose dismissed all she had taught or could teach with a flick of the fingers.
"well, so i have to learn from him," said dragonfly.
"wizards don't teach women. you're besotted."
"you and broom trade spells."
"broom's a village sorcerer. this man is a wise man. he learned the high arts at the great house on roke!"
"he told me what it's like," dragonfly said. "you walk up through the town, thwil town. there's a door opening on the street, but it's shut. it looks like an ordinary door."
the witch listened, unable to resist the lure of secrets revealed and the contagion of passionate desire.
"and a man comes when you knock, an ordinary-looking man. and he gives you a test. you have to say a certain word, a password, before he'll let you in. if you don't know it, you can never go in. but if he lets you in, then from inside you see that the door is entirely different - it's made out of horn, with a tree carved on it, and the frame is made out of a tooth, one tooth of a dragon that lived long, long before erreth-akbe, before morred, before there were people in earthsea. there were only dragons, to begin with. they found the tooth on mount onn, in havnor, at the centre of the world. and the leaves of the tree are carved so thin that the light shines through them, but the door's so strong that if the doorkeeper shuts it no spell could ever open it. and then the doorkeeper takes you down a hall and another hall, till you're lost and bewildered, and then suddenly you come out under the sky. in the court of the fountain, in the very deepest inside of the great house. and that's where the archmage would be, if he was there..."
"go on," the witch murmured.
that's all he really told me, yet," said dragonfly, coming back to the mild, overcast spring day and the infinite familiarity of the village lane, rose's front yard, her own seven milch ewes grazing on iria hill, the bronze crowns of the oaks. "he's very careful how he talks about the masters."
rose nodded.
"but he told me about some of the students."
"no harm in that, i suppose."
"i don't know," dragonfly said. "to hear about the great house is wonderful, but i thought the people there would be - i don't know. of course they're mostly just boys when they go there. but i thought they'd be..." she gazed off at the sheep on the hill, her face troubled. "some of them are really bad and stupid," she said in a low voice. "they get into the school because they're rich. and they study there just to get richer. or to get power."
"well, of course they do," said rose, "that's what they're there for!"
"but power - like you told me about - that .isn't the same as making people do what you want, or pay you -"
"isn't it?"
"no!"
"if a word can heal, a word can wound," the witch said. "if a hand can kill, a hand can cure. it's a poor cart that goes only in one direction,"
"but on roke, they learn to use power well, not for harm, not for gain."
"everything's for gain some way, i'd say. people have to live. but what do i know? i make my living doing what i know how to do. but i don't meddle with the great arts, the perilous crafts, like summoning the dead," and rose made the hand-sign to avert the danger spoken of.
"everything's perilous," dragonfly said, gazing now through the sheep, the hill, the trees, into still depths, a colorless, vast emptiness like the clear sky before sunrise.
rose watched her. she knew she did not know who man was or what she might be. a big, strong, awkward, ignorant, innocent, angry woman, yes. but ever since she was a child rose had seen something more in her, something beyond what she was. and when irian looked away from the world like that, she seemed to enter that place or time or being beyond herself, utterly beyond rose's knowledge. then rose feared her, and feared for her.
"you take care," the witch said, grim. "everything's perilous, right enough, and meddling with wizards most of all."
through love, respect, and trust, dragonfly would never disregard a warning from rose; but she was unable to see ivory as perilous. she didn't understand him, but the idea of fearing him, him personally, was not one she could keep in mind. she tried to be respectful, but it was impossible. she thought he was clever and quite handsome, but she didn't think much about him, except for what he could tell her. he knew what she wanted to know and little by little he told it to her, and then it was not really what she had wanted to know, but she wanted to know more. he was patient with her, and she was grateful to him for his patience, knowing he was much quicker than she. sometimes he smiled at her ignorance, but he never sneered at it or reproved it. like the witch, he liked to answer a question with a question; but the answers to rose's questions were always something she'd always known, while the answers to his questions were things she had never imagined and found startling, unwelcome, even painful, altering all her beliefs.
day by day, as they talked in the old stableyard of iria, where they had fallen into the habit of meeting, she asked him and he told her more, though reluctantly, always partially; he shielded his masters, she thought, trying to defend the bright image of roke, until one day he gave in to her insistence and spoke freely at last.
"there are good men there," he said. "great and wise the archmage certainly was. but he's gone. and the masters . . . some hold aloof, following arcane knowledge, seeking ever more patterns, ever more names, but using their knowledge for nothing. others hide their ambition under the grey cloak of wisdom. roke is no longer where power is in earthsea. that's the court in havnor, now. roke lives on its great past, defended by a thousand spells against the present day. and inside those spell-walls, what is there? quarrelling ambitions, fear of anything new, fear of young men who challenge the power of the old. and at the centre, nothing. an empty courtyard. the archmage will never return."
"how do you know?" she whispered.
he looked stern. the dragon bore him away."
"you saw it? you saw that?" she clenched her hands, imagining that flight.
after a long time, she came back to the sunlight and the stableyard and her thoughts and puzzles. "but even if he's gone," she said, "surely some of the masters are truly wise?"
when he looked up and spoke it was with a hint of a melancholy smile. "all the mystery and wisdom of the masters, when it's out in the daylight, doesn't amount to so much, you know. tricks of the trade - wonderful illusions. but people don't want to believe that. they want the mysteries, the illusions. who can blame them? there's so little in most lives that's beautiful or worthy."
as if to illustrate what he was saying, he had picked up a bit of brick from the broken pavement, and tossed it up in the air, and as he spoke it fluttered about their heads on delicate blue wings, a butterfly. he put out his finger and the butterfly lighted on it. he shook his finger and the butterfly fell to the ground, a fragment of brick.
"there's not much worth much in my life," she said, gazing down at the pavement. "all i know how to do is run the farm, and try to stand up and speak truth. but if i thought it was all tricks and lies even on roke, i'd hate those men for fooling me, fooling us all. it can't be lies. not all of it. the archmage did go into the labyrinth among the hoary men and come back with the ring of peace. he did go into death with the young king, and defeat the spider mage, and come back. we know that on the word of the king himself. even here, the harpers came to sing that song, and a teller came to tell it."
ivory nodded gravely. "but the archmage lost all his power in the land of death. maybe all magery was weakened then."
"rose's spells work as well as ever," she said stoutly.
ivory smiled. he said nothing, but she knew how petty the doings of a village witch appeared to him, who had seen great deeds and powers. she sighed and spoke from her heart - "oh, if only i wasn't a woman!"
he smiled again. "you're a beautiful woman," he said, but plainly, not in the flattering way he had used with her at first, before she showed him she hated it. "why would you be a man?"
"so i could go to roke! and see, and learn! why, why is it only men can go there?"
"so it was ordained by the first archmage, centuries ago," said ivory. "but ... i too have wondered."
"you have?"
"often. seeing only boys and men, day after day, in the great house and all the precincts of the school. knowing that the townswomen are spell-bound from so much as setting foot on the fields about roke knoll. once in years, perhaps, some great lady is allowed to come briefly into the outer courts. .. why is it so? are all women incapable of understanding? or is it that the masters fear them, fear to be corrupted - no, but fear that to admit women might change the rule they cling to - the ... purity of that rule."
"women can live chaste as well as men can," dragonfly said bluntly. she knew she was blunt and coarse where he was delicate and subtle, but she did not know any other way to be.
"of course," he said, his smile growing brilliant. "but witches aren't always chaste, are they? maybe that's what the masters are afraid of. maybe celibacy isn't as necessary as the rule of roke teaches. maybe it's not a way of keeping the power pure, but of keeping the power to themselves. leaving out women, leaving out everybody who won't agree to turn himself into a eunuch to get that one kind of power ... who knows? a she-mage! now that would change everything, all the rules!"
she could see his mind dance ahead of hers, taking up and playing with ideas, transforming them as he had transformed brick into butterfly. she could not dance with him, she could not play with him, but she watched him in wonder.
"you could go to roke," he said, his eyes bright with excitement, mischief, daring. meeting her almost pleading, incredulous silence, he insisted: 'you could. a woman you are, but there are ways to change your seeming. you have the heart, the courage, the will of a man. you could enter the great house. i know it."
"and what would i do there?"
"what all the students do. live alone in a stone cell and learn to be wise! it might not be what you dream it to be, but that, too, you'd learn."
"i couldn't. they'd know. i couldn't even get in. there's the doorkeeper, you said. i don't know the word to say to him."
the password, yes. but i can teach it to you."
"you can? is it allowed?"
"i don't care what's "allowed"," he said, with a frown she had never seen on his face. the archmage himself said, rules are made to he broken. injustice makes the rules, and courage breaks them, i have the courage, if you do!"
she looked at him. she could not speak. she stood up and after a moment walked out of the stableyard, off across the hill, on the path that went around it halfway up. one of the dogs, her favorite, a big, ugly, heavy-headed hound, followed her. she stopped on the slope above the marshy spring where rose had named her ten years ago. she stood there; the dog sat down beside her and looked up at her face. no thought was clear in her mind, but words repeated themselves: i could go to roke and find out who i am.
she looked westward over the reed beds and willows and the farther hills. the whole western sky was empty, clear. she stood still and her soul seemed to go into that sky and be gone, gone out of her.
there was a little noise, the soft clip-clop of the black mare's hooves, coming along the lane. then dragonfly came back to herself and called to ivory and ran down the hill to meet him. "i will go," she said.
he had not planned or intended any such adventure, but crazy as it was, it suited him better the more he thought about it. the prospect of spending the long grey winter at westpool sank his spirits like a stone. there was nothing here for him except the girl dragonfly, who had come to fill his thoughts. her massive, innocent strength had defeated him absolutely so far, but he did what she pleased in order to have her do at last what he pleased, and the game, he thought, was worth playing. if she ran away with him, the game was as good as won. as for the joke of it, the notion of actually getting her into the school on roke disguised as a man, there was little chance of pulling it off, but it pleased him as a gesture of disrespect to all the piety and pomposity of the masters and their toadies. and if somehow it succeeded, if he could actually get a woman through that door, even for a moment, what a sweet revenge it would be!
money was a problem. the girl thought, of course, that he as a great wizard would snap his fingers and waft them over the sea in a magic boat flying before the magewind. but when he told her they'd have to hire passage on a ship, she said simply, "i have the cheese money."
he treasured her rustic sayings of that kind. sometimes she frightened him, and he resented it. his dreams of her were never of her yielding to him, but of himself yielding to a fierce, destroying sweetness, sinking into an annihilating embrace, dreams in which she was something beyond comprehension and he was nothing at all. he woke from those dreams shaken and shamed. in daylight, when he saw her big, dirty hands, when she talked like a yokel, a simpleton, he regained his superiority. he only wished there were someone to repeat her sayings to, one of his old friends in the great port who would find them amusing. ""i have the cheese money,"" he repeated to himself, riding back to westpool, and laughed. "i do indeed," he said aloud. the black mare nicked her ear.
he told birch that he had received a sending from his teacher on roke, the master hand, and must go at once, on what business he could not say, of course, but it should not take long once he was there; a half-month to go, another to return; he would be back well before the fallows at the latest. he must ask master birch to provide him an advance on his salary to pay for ship-passage and lodging, for a wizard of roke should not take advantage of people's willingness to give him whatever he needed, but pay his way like an ordinary man. as birch agreed with this, he had to give ivory a purse for his journey. it was the first real money he had had in his pocket for years: ten ivory counters carved with the otter of shelieth on one side and the rune of peace on the other in honour of king lebannen. "hello, little namesakes," he told them when he was alone with them. "you and the cheese money will get along nicely."
he told dragonfly very little of his plans, largely because he made few, trusting to chance and his own wits, which seldom let him down if he was given a fair chance to use them. the girl asked almost no questions. "will i go as a man all the way?" was one.
"yes," he said, "but only disguised. i won't put a semblance-spell on you till we're on roke island."
"i thought it would be a spell of change," she said.
that would be unwise," he said, with a good imitation of the master changer's terse solemnity. "if need be, i'll do it, of course. but you'll find wizards very sparing of the great spells. for good reason."
the equilibrium," she said, accepting all he said in its simplest sense, as always.
"and perhaps because such arts have not the power they once had," he said. he did not know himself why he tried to weaken her faith in wizardry; perhaps because any weakening of her strength, her wholeness, was a gain for him. he had begun merely by trying to get her into his bed, a game he loved to play. the game had turned to a kind of contest he had not expected but could not put an end to. he was determined now not to win her, but to defeat her. he could not let her defeat him. he must prove to her and himself that his dreams were meaningless.
quite early on, impatient with wooing her massive physical indifference, he had worked up a charm, a sorcerer's seduction-spell of which he was contemptuous even as he made it, though he knew it was effective. he cast it on her while she was, characteristically, mending a cow's halter. the result had not been the melting eagerness it had produced in girls he had used it on in havnor and thwil. dragonfly had gradually become silent and sullen. she ceased asking her endless questions about roke and did not answer when he spoke. when he very tentatively approached her, taking her hand, she struck him away with a blow to the head that left him dizzy. he saw her stand up and stride out of the stableyard without a word, the ugly hound she favoured trotting after her. it looked back at him with a grin.
she took the path to the old house. when his ears stopped ringing he stole after her, hoping the charm was working and that this was only her particularly uncouth way of leading him at last to her bed. nearing the house, he heard crockery breaking. the father, the drunkard, came wobbling out looking scared and confused, followed by dragonfly's loud, harsh voice - "out of the house, you drunken, crawling traitor! you foul, shameless lecher!"
"she took my cup away," the master of iria said to the stranger, whining like a puppy, while his dogs yammered around him. "she broke it."
ivory departed. he did not return for two days. on the third day he rode experimentally past old iria, and she came striding down to meet him. "i'm sorry, ivory," she said, looking up at him with her smoky orange eyes. "i don't know what came over me the other day. i was angry. but not at you. i beg your pardon."
he forgave her gracefully. he did not try a love-charm on her again.
soon, he thought now, he would not need one. he would have real power over her. he had finally seen how to get it. she had given it into his hands. her strength and her willpower were tremendous, but fortunately she was stupid, and he was not.
birch was sending a carter down to kembermouth with six barrels of ten-year-old fanian ordered by the wine merchant there. he was glad to send his wizard along as bodyguard, for the wine was valuable, and though the young king was putting things to rights as fast as he could, there were still gangs of robbers on the roads. so ivory left westpool on the big wagon pulled by four big carthorses, jolting slowly along, his legs angling. down by jackass hill an uncouth figure rose up from the wayside and asked the carter for a lift. "i don't know you," the carter said, lifting his whip to warn the stranger off, but ivory came round the wagon and said, "let the lad ride, my good man. he'll do no harm while i'm with you."
"keep an eye on him then, master," said the carter.
"i will," said ivory, with a wink at dragonfly. she, well disguised in dirt and a farmhand's old smock and leggings and a loathsome felt hat, did not wink back. she played her part even while they sat side by side dangling their legs over the tailgate, with six great halftuns of wine jolting between them and the drowsy carter, and the drowsy summer hills and fields slipping slowly, slowly past. ivory tried to tease her, but she only shook her head. maybe she was scared by this wild scheme, now she was embarked on it. there was no telling. she was solemnly, heavily silent. i could be very bored by this woman, ivory thought, if once i'd had her underneath me. that thought stirred him almost unbearably, but when he looked back at her, his thoughts died away before her massive, actual presence.
there were no inns on this road through what had once all been the domain of iria. as the sun neared the western plains, they stopped at a farmhouse that offered stabling for the horses, a shed for the cart, and straw in the stable loft for the carters. the loft was dark and stuffy and the straw musty. ivory felt no lust at all, though dragonfly lay not three feet from him. she had played the man so thoroughly all day that she had half-convinced even him. maybe she'll fool the old men after all! he thought, and grinned at the thought, and slept.
they jolted on all the next day through a summer thundershower or two and carne at dusk to kembermouth, a walled, prosperous port city. they left the carter to his master's business and walked down to find an inn near the docks. dragonfly looked about at the sights of the city in a silence that might have been awe or disapproval or mere stolidity. "this is a nice little town," ivory said, "but the only city in the world is havnor."
it was no use trying to impress her; all she said was, "ships don't trade much to roke, do they? will it take a long time to find one to take us, do you think?"
"not if i carry a staff," he said.
she stopped looking about and strode along in thought for a while. she was beautiful in movement, bold and graceful, her head carried high.
"you mean they'll oblige a wizard? but you aren't a wizard."
"that's a formality. we senior sorcerers may carry a staff when we're on roke's business. which i am."
taking me there?"
"bringing them a student - yes. a student of great gifts!"
she asked no more questions. she never argued; it was one of her virtues.
that night, over supper at the waterfront inn, she asked with unusual timidity in her voice, "do i have great gifts?"
"in my judgment, you do," he said.
she pondered - conversation with her was often a slow business - and said, "rose always said i had power, but she didn't know what kind. and i ... i know i do, but i don't know what it is."
"you're going to roke to find out," he said, raising his glass to her. after a moment she raised hers and smiled at him, a smile so tender and radiant that he said spontaneously, "and may what you find be all you seek!"
"if i do, it will be thanks to you," she said. in that moment he loved her for her true heart, and would have forsworn any thought of her but as his companion in a bold adventure, a gallant joke.
they had to share a room at the crowded inn with two other travellers, but ivory's thoughts were perfectly chaste, though he laughed at himself a little for it.
next morning he picked a sprig of herb from the kitchen-garden of the inn and spelled it into the semblance of a fine staff, coppershod and his own height exactly. "what is the wood?" dragonfly asked, fascinated, when she saw it, and when he answered with a laugh, "rosemary," she laughed too.
they set off along the wharves, asking for a ship bound south that might take a wizard and his prentice to the isle of the wise, and soon enough they found a heavy trader bound for wathort, whose master would carry the wizard for goodwill and the prentice for half-price. even half-price was half the cheese money, but they would have the luxury of a cabin, for sea otter was a decked, two-masted ship.
as they were talking with her master a wagon drew up on the dock and began to unload six familiar halftun barrels. that's ours," ivory said, and the ship's master said, "bound for hort town," and dragonfly said softly, "from iria."
she glanced back at the land then. it was the only time he ever saw her look back.
the ship's weatherworker came aboard just before they sailed, no roke wizard but a weatherbeaten fellow in a worn sea-cloak. ivory flourished his staff a little in greeting him. the sorcerer looked him up and down and said, "one man works weather on this ship. if it's not me, i'm off."
"i'm a mere passenger, master bagman. i gladly leave the winds in your hands."
the sorcerer looked at dragonfly, who stood straight as a tree and said nothing.
"good," he said, and that was the last word he spoke to ivory.
during the voyage, however, he talked several times with dragonfly, which made ivory a bit uneasy. her ignorance and trustfulness could endanger her and therefore him. what did she and the bagman talk about? he asked, and she answered, "what is to become of us."
he stared.
"of all of us. of way, and felkway, and havnor, and wathort, and roke. all the people of the islands. he says that when king lebannen was to be crowned, last autumn, he sent to gont for the old archmage to come crown him, and he wouldn't come. and there was no new archmage. so he took the crown himself. and some say that's wrong, and he doesn't rightly hold the throne. but others say the king himself is the new archmage. but he isn't a wizard, only a king. so others say the dark years will come again, when there was no rule of justice, and wizardry was used for evil ends."
after a pause ivory said, "that old weatherworker says all this?"
"it's common talk, i think," said dragonfly, with her grave simplicity.
the weatherworker knew his trade, at least. sea otter sped south; they met summer squalls and choppy seas, but never a storm or a troublesome wind. they put off and took on cargo at ports on the north shore of o, at ilien, leng, kamery, and o port, and then headed west to carry the passengers to roke. and facing the west ivory felt a little hollow at the pit of his stomach, for he knew all too well how roke was guarded. he knew neither he nor the weatherworker could do anything at all to turn the roke-wind if it blew against them. and if it did. dragonfly would ask why? why did it blow against them?
he was glad to see the sorcerer uneasy too, standing by the helmsman, keeping a watch up on the masthead, taking in sail at the hint of a west wind. but the wind held steady from the north. a thunder-squall came pelting on that wind, and ivory went down to the cabin, but dragonfly stayed up on deck. she was afraid of the water, she had told him. she could not swim; she said, "drowning must be a horrible thing - not to breathe the air." she had shuddered at the thought. it was the only fear she had ever shown of anything. but she disliked the low, cramped cabin, and had stayed on deck every day and slept there on the warm nights. ivory had not tried to coax her into the cabin. he knew now that coaxing was no good. to have her he must master her; and that he would do, if only they could come to roke.
he came up on deck again. it was clearing, and as the sun set the clouds broke all across the west, showing a golden sky behind the high dark curve of a hill.
ivory looked at that hill with a kind of longing hatred.
"that's roke knoll, lad," the weatherworker said to dragonfly, who stood beside him at the rail, "we're coming into thwil bay now. where there's no wind but the wind they want."
by the time they were well into the bay and had let down the anchor it was dark, and ivory said to the ship's master, "i'll go ashore in the morning."
down in their tiny cabin dragonfly sat waiting for him, solemn as ever but her eyes blazing with excitement. "we'll go ashore in the morning," he repeated to her, and she nodded, acceptant.
she said, "do i look all right?"
he sat down on his narrow bunk and looked at her sitting on her narrow bunk; they could not face each other directly, as there was no room for their knees. at o port she had bought herself a decent shirt and breeches, at his suggestion, so as to look a more probable candidate for the school. her face was windburned and scrubbed clean. her hair was braided and the braid clubbed, like ivory's. she had got her hands clean, too, and they lay flat on her thighs, long strong hands, like a man's.
"you don't look like a man," he said. her face fell. "not to me. you'll never look like a man to me. but don't worry. you will to them."
she nodded, with an anxious face.
the first test is the great test, dragonfly," he said. every night he lay alone in this cabin he had planned this conversation. "to enter the great house: to go through that door."
"i've been thinking about it," she said, hurried and earnest. "couldn't i just tell them who i am? with you there to vouch for me - to say even if i am a woman, i have some gift - and i'd promise to take the vow and make the spell of celibacy, and live apart if they wanted me to -"
he was shaking his head all through her speech. "no, no, no, no. hopeless. useless. fatal!"
"even if you -"
"even if i argued for you. they won't listen. the rule of roke forbids women to be taught any high art, any word of the language of the making. it's always been so. they will not listen. so they must be shown! and we'll show them, you and i. we'll teach them. you must have courage, dragonfly. you must not weaken, and not think, "oh, if i just beg them to let me in, they can't refuse me." they can, and will. and if you reveal yourself, they will punish you. and me." he put a ponderous emphasis on the last word, and inwardly murmured, "avert."
she gazed at him from her unreadable eyes, and finally said, "what must i do?"
"do you trust me, dragonfly?"
"yes."
"will you trust me entirely, wholly - knowing that the risk i take for you is greater even than your risk in this venture?"
"yes."
"then you must tell me the word you will speak to the doorkeeper."
she stared. "but i thought you'd tell it to me - the password."
"the password he will ask you for is your true name."
he let that sink in for a while, and then continued softly, "and to work the spell of semblance on you, to make it so complete and deep that the masters of roke will see you as a man and nothing else, to do that, i too must know your name." he paused again. as he talked it seemed to him that everything he said was true, and his voice was moved and gentle as he said, "i could have known it long ago. but i chose not to use those arts. i wanted you to trust me enough to tell me your name yourself."
she was looking down at her hands, clasped now on her knees. in the faint reddish glow of the cabin lantern her lashes cast very delicate, long shadows on her cheeks. she looked up, straight at him. "my name is irian," she said.
he smiled. she did not smile.
he said nothing. in fact he was at a loss. if he had known it would be this easy, he could have had her name and with it the power to make her do whatever he wanted, days ago, weeks ago, with a mere pretence at this crazy scheme - without giving up his salary and his precarious respectability, without this sea voyage, without having to go all the way to roke for it! for he saw the whole plan now was folly. there was no way he could disguise her that would fool the doorkeeper for a moment. all his notions of humiliating the masters as they had humiliated him were moonshine. obsessed with tricking the girl, he had fallen into the trap he laid for her. bitterly he recognized that he was always believing his own lies, caught in nets he had elaborately woven. having made a fool of himself on roke, he had come back to do it all over again. a great, desolate anger swelled up in him. there was no good, no good in anything.
"what's wrong?" she asked. the gentleness of her deep, husky voice unmanned him, and he hid his face in his hands, fighting against the shame of tears.
she put her hand on his knee. it was the first time she had ever touched him. he endured it, the warmth and weight of her touch that he had wasted so much time wanting.
he wanted to hurt her, to shock her out of her terrible, ignorant kindness, but what he said when he finally spoke was, "i only wanted to make love to you,"
"you did?"
"did you think i was one of their eunuchs? that i'd castrate myself with spells so i could be holy? why do you think i don't have a staff? why do you think i'm not at the school? did you believe everything i said?"
"yes," she said. "i'm sorry." her hand was still on his knee. she said, "we can make love if you want."
he sat up, sat still.
"what are you?" he said to her at last.
"i don't know. it's why i wanted to come to roke. to find out."
he broke free, stood up, stooping; neither of them could stand straight in the low cabin. clenching and unclenching his hands, he stood as far from her as he could, his back to her.
"you won't find out. it's all lies, shams. old men playing games with words. i wouldn't play their games, so i left. do you know what i did?" he turned, showing his teeth in a rictus of triumph. "i got a girl, a town girl, to come to my room. my cell. my little stone celibate cell. it had a window looking out on a back-street. no spells - you can't make spells with all their magic going on. but she wanted to come, and came, and i let a rope ladder out the window, and she climbed it. and we were at it when the old men came in! i showed 'em! and if i could have got you in, i'd have showed 'em again, i'd have taught them their lesson!"
"well, i'll try," she said.
he stared.
"not for the same reasons as you," she said, "but i still want to. and we came all this way. and you know my name."
it was true. he knew her name: irian. it was like a coal of fire, a burning ember in his mind. his thought could not hold it. his knowledge could not use it. his tongue could not say it.
she looked up at him, her sharp, strong face softened by the shadowy lantern-light. "if it was only to make love you brought me here, ivory," she said, "we can do that. if you still want to."
wordless at first, he simply shook his head. after a while he was able to laugh. "i think we've gone on past .. . that possibility . . ."
she looked at him without regret, or reproach, or shame.
"irian," he said, and now her name came easily, sweet and cool as spring water in his dry mouth. "irian, here's what you must do to enter the great house..."
