palaces

when alder came down to the docks, farflyer was still there, taking on a cargo of timbers; but he knew he had worn out his welcome on that ship. he went to a small shabby coaster tied up next to her, the pretty rose.

sparrowhawk had given him a letter of passage signed by the king and sealed with the rune of peace. "he sent it for me to use if i changed my mind," the old man had said with a snort. "it'll serve you." the ship's master, after getting his purser to read it for him, became quite deferential and apologised for the cramped quarters and the length of the voyage. pretty rose was going to havnor, sure enough, but she was a coaster, trading small goods from port to port, and it might take her a month to work clear round the southeast coast of the great island to the king's city.

that was all right with him, alder said. for if he dreaded the voyage, he feared its ending more.

new moon to half moon, the sea voyage was a time of peace for him. the grey kitten was a hardy traveler, busy mousing the ship all day but faithfully curling up under his chin or within hand's reach at night; and to his unceasing wonder, that little scrap of warm life kept him from the wall of stones and the voices calling him across it. not wholly. not so that he ever entirely forgot them. they were there, just through the veil of sleep in darkness, just through the brightness of the day. sleeping out on deck those warm nights, he opened his eyes often to see that the stars moved, swinging to the rocking of the moored ship, following their courses through heaven to the west. he was still a haunted man. but for a half month of summer along the coasts of kameber and barnisk and the great island he could turn his back on his ghosts.

for days the kitten hunted a young rat nearly as big as it was. seeing it proudly and laboriously hauling the carcass across the deck, one of the sailors called it tug. alder accepted the name for it.

they sailed down the ebavnor straits and in through the portals of havnor bay. across the sunlit water little by little the white towers of the city at the center of the world resolved out of the haze of distance. alder stood at the prow as they came in and looking up saw on the pinnacle of the highest tower a flash of silver light, the sword of erreth-akbe.

now he wished he could stay aboard and sail on and not go ashore into the great city among great people with a letter for the king. he knew he was no fit messenger. why had such a burden been laid on him? how could it be that a village sorcerer who knew nothing of high matters and deep arts was called on to make these journeys from land to land, from mage to monarch, from the living to the dead?

he had said something like that to sparrowhawk. "it's all beyond me," he had said. the old man looked at him a while and then, calling him by his true name, said, "the world's vast and strange, hara, but no vaster and no stranger than our minds are. think of that sometimes."

behind the city the sky darkened with a thunderstorm inland. the towers burned white against purple-black, and gulls soared like drifting sparks of fire above them.

pretty rose was moored, the gangplank run out. this time the sailors wished him well as he shouldered his pack. he picked up the covered poultry basket in which tug crouched patiently, and went ashore.

the streets were many and crowded, but the way to the palace was plain, and he had no idea what to do except go there and say that he carried a letter for the king from the archmage sparrowhawk.

and that he did, many times.

from guard to guard, from official to official, from the broad outer steps of the palace to high anterooms, staircases with gilded banisters, inner offices with tapestried walls, across floors of tile and marble and oak, under ceilings coffered, beamed, vaulted, painted, he went repeating his talisman: "i come from sparrowhawk who was the archmage with a letter for the king." he would not give his letter up. a retinue, a crowd of suspicious, semi-civil, patronising, temporising, obstructive guards and ushers and officials kept gathering and thickening around him and followed and impeded his slow way into the palace.

suddenly they were all gone. a door had opened. it closed behind him.

he stood alone in a quiet room. a wide window looked out over the roofs northwestward. the thundercloud had cleared and the broad grey summit of mount onn hovered above far hills.

another door opened. a man came in, dressed in black, about alder's age, quick moving, with a fine, strong face as smooth as bronze. he came straight to alder: "master alder, i am lebannen."

he put out his right hand to touch alders hand, palm against palm, as the custom was in ea and the enlades. alder responded automatically to the familiar gesture. then he thought he ought to kneel, or bow at least, but the moment to do so seemed to have passed. he stood dumb.

"you came from my lord sparrowhawk? how is he? is he well?"

"yes, lord. he sends you-" alder hurriedly groped inside his jacket for the letter, which he had intended to offer to the king kneeling, when they finally showed him to the throne room where the king would be sitting on his throne-"this letter, my lord."

the eyes watching him were alert, urbane, as implacably keen as sparrowhawk's, but withholding even more of the mind within. as the king took the letter alder offered him, his courtesy was perfect. "the bearer of any word from him has my heart's thanks and welcome. will you forgive me?"

alder finally managed a bow. the king walked over to the window to read the letter.

he read it twice at least, then refolded it. his face was as impassive as before. he went to the door and spoke to someone outside it, then turned back to alder. "please," he said, "sit down with me. they'll bring us something to eat. you've been all afternoon in the palace, i know. if the gate captain had had the wits to send me word, i could have spared you hours of climbing the walls and swimming the moats they set around me... did you stay with my lord sparrowhawk? in his house on the cliff's edge?"

"yes."

"i envy you. i've never been there. i haven't seen him since we parted on roke, half my lifetime ago. he wouldn't let me come to him on gont. he wouldn't come to my crowning." lebannen smiled as if nothing he said was of any moment. "he gave me my kingdom," he said.

sitting down, he nodded to alder to take the chair facing him across a little table. alder looked at the tabletop, inlaid with curling patterns of ivory and silver, leaves and blossoms of the rowan tree twined about slender swords.

"did you have a good voyage?" the king asked, and made other small talk while they were served plates of cold meat and smoked trout and lettuces and cheese. he set alder a welcome example by eating with a good appetite; and he poured them wine, the palest topaz, in goblets of crystal. he raised his glass. "to my lord and dear friend," he said.

alder murmured, "to him," and drank.

the king spoke about taon, which he had visited a few years before-alder remembered the excitement of the island when the king was in meoni. and he spoke of some musicians from taon who were in the city now, harpers and singers come to make music for the court; it might be alder knew some of them; and indeed the names he said were familiar. he was very skilled at putting his guest at ease, and food and wine were a considerable help too.

when they were done eating, the king poured them another half glass of wine and said, "the letter concerns you, mostly. did you know that?" his tone had not changed much from the small talk, and alder was fuddled for a moment.

"no," he said.

"do you have an idea what it deals with?"

"what i dream, maybe," alder said, speaking low, looking down.

the king studied him for a moment. there was nothing offensive in his gaze, but he was more open in that scrutiny than most men would have been. then he took up the letter and held it out to alder.

"my lord, i read very little."

lebannen was not surprised-some sorcerers could read, some could not-but he clearly and sharply regretted putting his guest at a disadvantage. the gold-bronze skin of his face went dusky red. he said, "i'm sorry, alder. may i read you what he says?"

"please, my lord," alder said. the king's embarrassment made him, for a moment, feel the king's equal, and he spoke for the first time naturally and with warmth.

lebannen scanned the salutation and some lines of the letter and then read aloud:

"alder of taon who bears this to you is one called in dream and not by his own will to that land you and i crossed once together. he will tell you of suffering where suffering is past and change where no thing changes. we closed the door cob opened. now the wall itself maybe is to fall. he has been to roke. only azver heard him. my lord the king will hear and will act as wisdom instructs and need requires. alder bears my lifelong honor and obedience to my lord the king. also my lifelong honor and regard to my lady tenar. also to my beloved daughter tehanu a spoken message from me.' and he signs it with the rune of the talon." lebannen looked up from the letter into alder's eyes and held his gaze. "tell me what it is you dream," he said.

so once more alder told his story.

he told it briefly and not very well. though he had been in awe of sparrowhawk, the ex-archmage looked and dressed and lived like an old villager or farmer, a man of alder's own kind and standing, and that simplicity had defeated all superficial timidity. but however kind and courteous the king might be, he looked like the king, he behaved like the king, he was the king, and to alder the distance was insuperable. he hurried through as best he could and stopped with relief.

lebannen asked a few questions. lily and then gannet had each touched alder once: never since? and gannet's touch had burned?

alder held out his hand. the marks were almost invisible under a month's tan.

"i think the people at the wall would touch me if i came close to them," he said.

"but you keep away from them?"

"i have done so."

"and they are not people you knew in life?"

"sometimes i think i know one or another."

"but never your wife?"

"there are so many of them, my lord. sometimes i think she's there. but i can't see her."

to talk about it brought it near, too near. he felt the fear welling up in him again. he thought the walls of the room might melt away and the evening sky and the floating mountain-crown vanish like a curtain brushed aside, to leave him standing where he was always standing, on a dark hill by a wall of stones.

"alder."

he looked up, shaken, his head swimming. the room seemed bright, the king's face hard and vivid.

"you'll stay here in the palace?"

it was an invitation, but alder could only nod, accepting it as an order.

"good. i'll arrange for you to give the message you bear to mistress tehanu tomorrow. and i know the white lady will wish to talk with you."

he bowed. lebannen turned away.

"my lord-"

lebannen turned.

"may i have my cat with me?"

not a flicker of a smile, no mockery. "of course."

"my lord, i am sorry to my heart, to bring news that troubles you!"

"any word from the man who sent you is a grace to me and to its bearer. and i'd rather get bad news from an honest man than lies from a flatterer," lebannen said, and alder, hearing the true accent of his home islands in the words, was a little cheered.

the king went out, and at once a man looked in the door alder had entered by. "i will take you to your chamber, if you wall follow me, sir," he said. he was dignified, elderly, and well dressed, and alder followed him without any idea whether he was a nobleman or a servant, and therefore not daring to ask him about tug. in the room before the room where he had met the king, the officials and guards and ushers had absolutely insisted that he leave his poultry basket with them. it had been eyed with suspicion and inspected with disapproval by ten or fifteen officials already. he had explained ten or fifteen times that he had the cat with him because he had nowhere in the city to leave it. the anteroom where he had been compelled to set it down was far behind him, he had not seen it there as they went through, he would never find it now, it was half a palace away, corridors, hallways, passages, doors...

his guide bowed and left him in a small, beautiful room, tapestried, carpeted, a chair with an embroidered seat, a window that looked out to the harbor, a table on which stood a bowl of summer fruit and a pitcher of water. and the poultry basket.

he opened it. tug emerged in a leisurely manner indicating his familiarity with palaces. he stretched, sniffed alder's fingers in greeting, and went about the room examining things. he discovered a curtained alcove with a bed in it and jumped up on the bed. a discreet knock at the door. a young man entered carrying a large, flat, heavy wooden box with no lid. he bowed to alder, murmuring, "sand, sir." he placed the box in the far corner of the alcove. he bowed again and left.

"well," alder said, sitting down on the bed. he was not in the habit of talking to the kitten. their relationship was one of silent, trustful touch. but he had to talk to somebody. "i met the king today," he said.

the king had all too many people to talk to before he could sit down on his bed. chief among them were the emissaries of the high king of the kargs. they were about to take their leave, having accomplished their mission to havnor, to their own satisfaction if not at all to lebannen's.

he had looked forward to the visit of these ambassadors as the culmination of years of patient overture, invitation, and negotiation. for the first ten years of his reign he had been able to accomplish nothing at all with the kargs. the god-king in awabath rejected his offers of treaties and trade and sent his envoys back unheard, declaring that gods do not parley with vile mortals, least of all with accursed sorcerers. but the god-kings proclamations of universal divine empire were not followed by the threatened fleets of a myriad ships bearing plumed warriors to overrun the godless west. even the pirate raids that had plagued the eastern isles of the archipelago for so long gradually ceased. the pirates had become contrabanders, seeking to trade whatever unlicensed goods they could smuggle out of karego-at for archipelagan iron and steel and bronze, for the kargad lands were poor in mines and metal.

it was from these illicit traders that news first came of the rise of the high king.

on hur-at-hur, the big, poor, easternmost island of the kargad lands, a warlord, thol, claiming descent from thoreg of hupun and from the god wuluah, had made himself high king of that land. next he had conquered at-nini, and then, with a fleet and an invading army drawn from both hur-at-hur and atnini, he had claimed dominion over the rich central island, karego-at. while his warriors were fighting their way towards awabath, the capital city, the people of the city rose up against the tyranny of the god-king. they slaughtered the high priests, drove the bureaucrats out of the temples, threw the gates wide, and welcomed king thol to the throne of thoreg with banners and dancing in the streets.

the god-king fled with a remnant of his guards and hi-erophants to the place of the tombs on atuan. there in the desert, in his temple by the earthquake-shattered ruins of the shrine of the nameless ones, one of his priest-eunuchs cut the god-king's throat.

thol proclaimed himself high king of the four kargad lands. as soon as he got word of that, lebannen sent ambassadors to greet his brother king and assure him of the friendly disposition of the archipelago.

five years of difficult and tiresome diplomacy had ensued. thol was a violent man on a threatened throne. in the wreckage of the theocracy, all control in his realm was chancy, all authority questionable. lesser kings constantly declared themselves and had to be bought or beaten into obedience to the high king. sectarians issued from shrines and caverns crying "woe to the mighty!" and foretelling earthquake, tidal wave, plague upon the deicides. ruling a troubled, divided empire, thol could scarcely place any trust in the powerful and wealthy archipelagans.

it meant nothing to him that their king talked about friendship, flourishing the ring of peace. did not the kargs have a claim to that ring? it had been made in ancient days in the west, but long ago, king thoreg of hupun had accepted it as a gift from the hero erreth-akbe, a sign of amity between the kargad and hardic lands. it had disappeared, and there had been war, not amity. but then the hawk-mage had found the ring and stolen it back, along with the priestess of the tombs of atuan, and carried both off to havnor. so much for the trustworthiness of the archipelagans.

through his envoys, lebannen patiently and politely pointed out that the ring of peace had, to begin with, been morred's gift to elfarran, a cherished token of the archipelago's most beloved king and queen. and a very sacred thing as well, for on it was the bond rune, a mighty enchantment of blessing. nearly four centuries ago, erreth-akbe had taken it to the kargad lands as a pledge of unbreakable peace. but the priests of awabath had broken the pledge, and broken the ring. some forty years ago now, spar-rowhawk of roke and tenar of atuan had healed the ring. what, then, of the peace?

that had been the gist of his messages to king thol.

and a month ago, just after the long dance of summer, a fleet of ships had come sailing straight down the passage of felkway, up the ebavnor straits, and in between the portals of havnor bay: long red ships with red sails, carrying plumed warriors, gorgeous-robed emissaries, and a few veiled women.

"let the daughter of thol the high king, who sits upon the throne of thoreg and whose ancestor was wuluah, wear the ring of peace upon her arm, as queen elfarran of solea wore it, and this will be the sign of everlasting peace between the western and the eastern isles."

that was the high king's message to lebannen. it was written out in big hardic runes on a scroll, but before handing it to king lebannen, thol's ambassador read it out loud, in public, at the reception of the emissaries at the court in havnor, with the whole court there to do the kargish envoys honor. perhaps it was because the ambassador did not actually read hardic, but spoke the words loudly and slowly from memory, that they had the tone of an ultimatum.

the princess said nothing. she stood among the ten handmaidens or slave girls who had accompanied her to havnor and the flock of court ladies who had been hastily assigned to look after her and do her honor. she was veiled, entirely veiled, as was, it appeared, the custom of well-born women in hur-at-hur. the veils, red with lines of gold embroidery, fell straight down from a flat-brimmed hat or headdress, so that the princess appeared to be a red column or pillar, cylindrical, featureless, motionless, silent.

"the high king thol does us great honor," lebannen said in his clear, quiet voice; and then he paused. the court and the emissaries waited. "you are welcome here, princess," he said to the veiled figure. it did not stir.

"let the princess be lodged in the river house, and let all be as she desires," lebannen said.

the river house was a beautiful small palace at the northern edge of the city, fitted into the old city wall, with terraces built out over the little river serrenen. queen heru had built it, and it was often called the queen's house.

when lebannen came to the throne he had had it repaired and refurnished, along with the palace of maharion, called the new palace, in which he held court. he used the river house only for summer festivities and sometimes as a retreat for himself for a few days.

a little rustle now went through his courtiers. the queens house?

after urbanities among the kargish emissaries, lebannen left the audience room. he went to his dressing room, where he could be as alone as a king can be, with his old servant, oak, whom he had known all his life.

he slapped the gilded scroll down on a table. "cheese in a rat trap," he said. he was shaking. he whipped the dagger he always wore out of its sheath and stabbed it straight down through the high king's message. "a pig in a poke," he said. "a piece of goods. the ring on her arm and the collar round my neck."

oak stared at him in blank dismay. prince arren of enlad had never lost his temper. when he was a child he might have wept for a moment, one bitter sob, but that was all. he was too well trained, too well disciplined to give way to anger. and as king, a king who had earned his realm by crossing the land of the dead, he could be stern, but always, oak thought, too proud, too strong for anger.

"they will not use me!" lebannen said, stabbing the dagger down again, his face so black and blind with fury that the old man drew back from him in real fear.

lebannen saw him. he always saw the people around him.

he sheathed his dagger. he said in a steadier voice,

"oak, by my name, i will destroy thol and his kingdom before i let him use me as a footstool to his throne." then he drew a long breath and sat down to let oak lift the heavy, gold-weighted state robe from his shoulders.

oak never breathed a word of this scene to anyone, but there was, of course, immediate and continuous speculation about the princess of the kargs and what the king was going to do about her-or what, in fact, he had already done.

he had not said that he accepted the offer of the princess as his bride. for all agreed she had been offered to him as his bride; the language about elfarran's ring barely veiled the offer, or the bargain, or the threat. but he had not refused it, either. his response (endlessly analyzed) had been to say she was welcome, that all should be as she desired, and that she should live in the river house: the queen's house. surely that was significant? but on the other hand, why not in the new palace? why send her across the city?

ever since lebannen's coronation, ladies of noble houses and princesses of the old royal lineages of enlad, ea, and shelieth had come to visit or to stay at the court. they had all been entertained most royally, and the king had danced at their weddings as, one by one, they settled for noblemen or wealthy commoners. it was well known that he liked the company of women and their counsel as well, that he would willingly flirt with a pretty girl and invite an intelligent woman to advise him, tease him, or console him. but no girl or woman had ever come near the rumor of a shadow of a chance of marrying him. and none had ever been lodged in the river house.

the king must have a queen, his advisors told him at regular intervals.

you really must marry, arren, his mother had told him the last time he saw her alive.

the heir of morred, will he have no heir? asked the common people.

to all of them he had said, in various words and ways: give me time. i have the ruins of a kingdom to rebuild. let me make a house worthy of a queen, a realm my child can rule. and because he was well loved and trusted, and still a young man, and for all his gravity a charming and persuasive one, he had escaped all the hopeful maidens. until now.

what was under the stiff red veils? who lived inside that unrevealing tent? the ladies assigned to the princess's entourage were besieged by questions. was she pretty? ugly? was it true she was tall and thin, short and muscular, white as milk, pockmarked, one-eyed, yellow-haired, black-haired, forty-five years old, ten years old, a drooling cretin, a brilliant beauty?

gradually the rumors began to run one way. she was young, though not a child; hair neither yellow nor black; pretty enough, said some of the ladies; coarse, said others. spoke not a word of hardic, they all said, and would not learn. hid among her women, and when forced to leave her room, hid in her red tent-veils. the king had paid her a visit of courtesy. she had not bowed to him, or spoken, or made any sign, but stood there, said old lady lyesa in exasperation, "like a brick chimney."

he spoke to her through men who had served as his envoys in the kargad lands and through the karg ambassador, who spoke fairly good hardic. laboriously he transmitted his compliments and queries as to her wishes and desires. the translators spoke to her women, whose veils were shorter and somewhat less impenetrable. her women gathered round the motionless red pillar and mumbled and buzzed and returned the translators, and the translators informed the king that the princess was content and required nothing.

she had been there a half month when tenar and tehanu arrived from gont. lebannen had sent a ship and a message begging them to come, shortly before the kargad leet brought the princess, and for reasons that had nothing to do with her or king thol. but the first time he was alone nth tenar, he burst out, "what am i going to do with her? at can i do?"

"tell me about it," tenar said, looking somewhat amazed.

lebannen had spent only a brief time with tenar, though they had written a few letters over the years; he was not yet used to her hair being grey, and she seemed smaller than he remembered her; but with her he felt immediately, as he had fifteen years earlier, that he could say anything and she would understand.

"for five years i've built up trade and tried to keep on good terms with thol, because he's a warlord and i don't want my kingdom pinched, as it was in maharion's reign, between dragons in the west and warlords in the east. and because i rule in the sign of peace. and it went well enough, till this. till he sends this girl out of the blue, saying if you want peace, give her elfarran's ring. your ring, tenar! yours and ged's!"

tenar hesitated a while. "she is his daughter, after all."

"what's a daughter to a barbarian king? goods. a bargaining piece to buy advantage with. you know that! you were born there!"

it was unlike him to speak so, and he heard it himself. he knelt down suddenly, catching her hand and putting it over his eyes in sign of contrition. "tenar, i'm sorry. this disturbs me beyond all reason. i can't see what to do."

"well, so long as you do nothing, you have some leeway... maybe the princess has some opinion of her own?"

"how can she? hidden in that red sack? she won't talk, she won't look out, she might as well be a tent pole." he tried to laugh. his own uncontrollable resentment alarmed him and he tried to excuse it. "this came on just as i had troubling news from the west. it was for that that i asked you and tehanu to come. not to bother you with this foolishness."

"it isn't foolishness," tenar said, but he brushed the topic away, dismissed it, and began to talk about dragons.

since the news from the west had been troubling indeed, he had succeeded in not thinking about the princess at all, most of the time. he was aware that it was not his habit to handle matters of state by ignoring them. manipulated, one manipulates others. several days after their conversation, he asked tenar to visit the princess, to try to get her to talk. after all, he said, they spoke the same language.

"probably," tenar said. "i never knew anybody from hur-at-hur. on atuan, we called them barbarians."

he was chastised. but of course she did what he asked. presently she reported that she and the princess spoke the same language, or nearly the same, and that the princess had not known that there were any other languages. she had thought all the people here, the courtiers and ladies, were malicious lunatics, mocking her by chattering and yapping like animals without human speech. as well as tenar could tell, she had grown up in the desert, in king thol's original domain on hur-at-hur, and had only been very briefly at the imperial court in awabath before she was sent on to havnor.

"she's frightened," tenar said.

"so she hides in her tent. what does she think i am?"

"how could she know what you are?"

he scowled. "how old is she?"

"young. but a woman."

"i can't marry her," he said, with sudden resolution. "i'll send her back."

"a returned bride is a dishonored woman. if you send her back, thol might kill her to keep the dishonor from his house. he'll certainly consider that you intend to dishonor him."

the look of fury came into his face again.

tenar forestalled him. "barbarian customs," she said stiffly.

he strode up and down the room. "very well. but i will not consider this girl as queen of the kingdom of morred. can she be taught to speak hardic? a few words, at least? is she unteachable? i'll tell thol that a hardic king can't marry a woman who doesn't speak the language of the realm. i don't care if he doesn't like it, he needs the slap. and it buys me time."

"and you'll ask her to learn hardic?"

"how can i ask her anything if she takes it all for gibberish? what possible use is there in my going to her? i thought perhaps you'd speak to her, tenar... you must see what an imposition this is, using this girl to make thol appear my equal, using the ring-the ring you brought us-as a trap! i cannot even seem to condone it. i'm willing to temporise, to delay, in order to keep the peace. nothing more. even that much deceit is vile. tell the girl what you think best. i will have nothing to do with her."

and he went out in a righteous wrath, which cooled slowly into an uneasy feeling much resembling shame.

when the kargish emissaries announced they would be leaving soon, lebannen prepared a carefully worded message for king thol. he expressed his appreciation of the honor of the princess's presence in havnor and the pleasure he and his court would have in introducing her to the manners, customs, and language of his kingdom. he said nothing at all about the ring, about marrying her, or about not marrying her.

it was in the evening after his conversation with the dream-troubled sorcerer from taon that he met for the last time with the kargs and gave them his letter to the high king. he read it aloud first, as the ambassador had read aloud thol's letter to him.

the ambassador listened complacently. "the high king will be pleased," he said.

all the time he was talking amenities to the emissaries and displaying the gifts he was sending to thol, lebannen puzzled over this easy acceptance of his evasiveness. his thoughts all came to one conclusion: he knows i'm stuck with her. to which his mind made a passionate silent answer: never.

he inquired whether the ambassador would be going by the river house to bid his princess farewell. the ambassador looked at him blankly, as if he had been asked if he was going to say goodbye to a package he had delivered. lebannen felt the anger rising in his heart again. he saw the ambassador's face change a little, taking on a wary, placating look. he smiled and wished the emissaries a fair wind to the kargad lands. he went out of the audience chamber and to his own room.

rites and ceremony hedged most of his acts, and as king he must be in public most of his life; but because he had come to a throne empty for centuries, a palace where there were no protocols, he had been able to have some things as he liked them. he had kept ceremony out of his bedroom. his nights were his own. he said good night to oak, who would sleep in the anteroom, and shut the door. he sat down on his bed. he felt tired and angry and strangely desolate.

around his neck he always wore a slight gold chain with a little pouch of cloth-of-gold on it. in the pouch was a pebble: a dull, black bit of rock, rough edged. he took it out and held it in his hand as he sat and thought.

he tried to turn his mind away from all this stupidity about the kargish girl by thinking about the sorcerer alder and his dreams. but all that came into his mind was a painful envy of alder for having gone ashore on gont, having talked with ged, having stayed with him.

that was why he felt desolate. the man he called his lord, the man he had loved above all others, wouldn't let him come near, wouldn't come to him.

did ged believe that because he had lost his wizardly power, lebannen must think less of him? must despise him?

given the power that power had over the minds and hearts of men, it was not an implausible thought. but surely ged knew him better, or at least thought better of him.

was it that, having been truly lebannen's lord and guide, ged could not bear to be his subject? that might indeed be hard for the old man to bear: the blunt, irrevocable reversal of their status.

but lebannen remembered very clearly how ged had knelt to him, down on both knees, on roke knoll, in the shadow of the dragon and in the sight of the masters whose master ged had been. he had stood up and kissed lebannen, telling him to rule well, calling him my lord and dear companion.

"he gave me my kingdom," lebannen had said to alder. that had been the moment he gave it. wholly, freely.

and that was why ged wouldn't come to havnor, wouldn't let lebannen come to take counsel with him. he had handed over the power-wholly, freely. he would not even seem to meddle, to cast his shadow across lebannen's light.

"he has done with doing," the doorkeeper had said.

but alder's story had moved ged to send the man here, to lebannen, asking him to act as need required.

it was indeed strange, alders story; and ged's saying that maybe the wall itself was going to fall was stranger yet. what could it mean? and why should one man's dreams bear so much weight?

he himself had dreamed of the outskirts of the dryland, long ago, when he and ged the archmage were traveling together, before they ever came to selidor.

and on that westernmost of all the islands he had followed ged into the dry land. across the wall of stones, awn to dim cities where the shadows of the dead stood in doorways or walked without aim or purpose in streets lit only ay the moveless stars. with ged he had walked across all it country, a weary way to a dark valley of dust and stones at the foot of the mountains whose only name was paln.

he opened his palm, looked down at the little black stone he held, closed his hand on it again.

from the valley of the dry river, having done what they came to do, they had climbed up into the mountains, because there was no turning back. they had gone up the road forbidden to the dead, climbing, clambering over rocks that scored and burned their hands, till ged could go no farther. lebannen had carried him as far as he could, then crawled on with him to the end of darkness, the hopeless cliff of night. and so had come back, with him, into the sunlight and the sound of the sea breaking on the shores of life.

it was a long time since he had thought so vividly of that terrible journey. but the bit of black stone from those mountains was always over his heart.

and it seemed to him now that the memory of that land, the darkness of it, the dust, was always in his mind just under the bright various play and movement of the days, although he always looked away from it. he looked away because he could not bear the knowledge that in the end that was where he would come again: come alone, uncompanioned, and forever. to stand empty-eyed, unspeaking, in the shadows of a shadow city. never to see sunlight, or drink water, or touch a living hand.

he got up abruptly, shaking off these morbid thoughts.

he closed the stone in its pouch, made ready for bed, put out the lamp, and lay down. at once he saw it again: the dim grey land of dust and rock it rose up far ahead into black, sharp peaks, but here it sloped away, always downward, to the right, into utter darkness. "what lies that way?" he had asked ged as they walked on and on. his companion had said he did not know, that maybe that way there was no end. lebannen sat up, angered and alarmed by the relentless drift of his thought. his eyes sought the window. it looked north. he liked the view from havnor across the hills to the tall, grey-headed mountain onn. farther north, unseen, across all the width of the great island and the sea of ea, was enlad, his home.

lying in bed he could see only the sky, a clear summer night sky, the heart of the swan riding high among lesser stars. his kingdom. the kingdom of light, of life, where the stars blossomed like white flowers in the east and drooped in their brightness to the west. he would not think of that other realm where the stars stayed still, where there was no power in a man's hand, and no right way to go because no way led anywhere.

lying gazing at the stars, he turned his mind deliberately from those memories and from the thought of ged. he thought of tenar: the sound of her voice, the touch of her hand. courtiers were ceremonious, cautious about how and when they touched the king. she was not. she laid her hand on his, laughing. she was bolder with him than his mother had been.

rose, princess of the house of enlad, had died of a fever two years ago, while he was on shipboard coming to make a royal visit to berila on enlad and the isles south of it. he had not known of her death till he came home to a city and a house in mourning.

his mother was there now in the dark country, the dry country. if he came there and passed her in the street she would not look at him. she would not speak to him.

he clenched his hands. he rearranged the cushions of his bed, tried to make himself easy, tried to set his mind away from there, to think of things that would keep him from going back there. to think of his mother living, her voice, her dark eyes under dark arched brows, her delicate hands.

or to think of tenar. he knew he had asked tenar to come to havnor not only to take counsel from her but because she was the mother that remained to him. he wanted that love, to give it and be given it. the ruthless love that makes no allowances, no conditions. tenar's eyes were grey, not dark, but she looked right through him with a piercing tenderness undeceived by anything he said or did.

he knew he did well what he had been called to do. he knew he was good at playing king. but only with his mother and with tenar had he ever known beyond any self-doubt what it was to be king.

tenar had known him since he was a very young man, not yet crowned. she had loved him then and ever since, for his sake, for ged's sake, and for her own. he was to her the son who never breaks your heart.

but she thought he might yet manage to, if he kept on being so rageful and dishonest about this poor girl from hur-at-hur.

she attended the final audience of the emissaries from awabath. lebannen had asked her to be there, and she was glad to come. finding kargs at the court when she came there at the beginning of summer, she had expected them to shun her or at least to eye her askance: the renegade priestess who with the thieving hawk mage had stolen the ring of erreth-akbe from the treasury of the tombs of atuan and traitorously fled with it to havnor. it was her doing that the archipelago had a king again. the kargs might well hold it against her.

and thol of hur-at-hur had restored the worship of the twin gods and the nameless ones, whose greatest temple tenar had despoiled. her treason had been not only political but religious.

yet that was long ago, forty years and more, almost the stuff of legend; and statesmen remember things selectively. thol's ambassador had begged the honor of an audience with her and had greeted her with elaborately pious respect, some of which she thought was real. he called her lady arha, the eaten one, the one ever reborn. she had not been called by those names for years, and they sounded very strange to her. but it gave her a keen, rueful pleasure to hear her native tongue and to find she could still speak it.

so she came to bid the ambassador and his company goodbye. she asked him to assure the high king of the kargs that his daughter was well, and she looked admiringly a last time at the tall, rawboned men with their pale, braided hair, their plumed headdresses, their court armor of silver mesh interwoven with feathers. when she lived in the kargad lands she had seen few men of her own race. only women and eunuchs had lived at the place of the tombs.

after the ceremony she escaped into the gardens of the palace. the summer night was warm and restless, flowering shrubs of the gardens stirring in the night wind. the sounds of the city outside the palace walls were like the murmur of a quiet sea. a couple of young courtiers were walking entwined under the arbors; not to disturb them, tenar walked among the fountains and the roses at the other end of the garden.

lebannen had left the audience scowling again. what was wrong with him? so far as she knew, he had never before rebelled against the obligations of his position. certainly he knew that a king must marry and has little real choice as to whom he marries. he knew that a king who does not obey his people is a tyrant. he knew his people wanted a queen, wanted heirs to the throne. but he had done nothing about it. women of the court had been happy to gossip to tenar about his several mistresses, none of whom had lost anything by being known as the king's lover. he had certainly managed all that quite well, but he couldn't expect to do so forever. why was he so enraged by king thol's offering him a perfectly appropriate solution?

imperfectly appropriate, perhaps. the princess was something of a problem.

tenar was going to have to try to teach the girl hardic. and to find ladies willing to instruct her in the manners of the archipelago and the etiquette of the court-something she certainly wasn't capable of herself. she had more sympathy with the princess's ignorance than with the courtiers' sophistication.

she resented lebannen's failure or inability to take the girl's point of view. couldn't he imagine what it was like for her? brought up in the women's quarters of a warlord's fortress in a remote desert land, where she probably had never seen any man but her father and uncles and some priests; suddenly carried off from that changeless poverty and rigidity of life, by strangers, on a long and frightening sea voyage; abandoned among people whom she knew of only as irreligious and bloodthirsty monsters who dwelt on the far edge of the world, not truly human at all because they were wizards who could turn into animals and birds-and she was to marry one of them!

tenar had been able to leave her own people and come to live among the monsters and wizards of the west because she had been with ged, whom she loved and trusted. even so it had not been easy; often her courage had failed. for all the welcome the people of havnor had given her, the crowds and cheering and flowers and praise, the sweet names they called her, the white lady, the peace bringer, tenar of the ring-for all that, she had cowered in her room in the palace those nights long ago, in misery because she was so lonely, and nobody spoke her language, and she didn't know any of the things they all knew. as soon as the rejoicings were over and the ring was in its place she had begged ged to take her away, and he had kept his promise, slipping away with her to gont. there she had lived in the old mage's house as ogion's ward and pupil, learning how to be an archipelagan, till she saw the way she wanted to follow for herself as a woman grown.

she had been younger than this girl when she came to havnor with the ring. but she had not grown up powerless, as the princess had. though her power as the one priestess had been mostly ceremonial, nominal, she had taken real control of her fate when she broke with the grim ways of her upbringing and won freedom for her prisoner and herself. but the daughter of a warlord would have control over only trivial things. when her father made himself king she would be called princess, she would be given richer clothing, more slaves, more eunuchs, more jewelry, until she herself was given in marriage; but she would have no say in any of it. all she ever saw of the world outside the women's quarters would be through window slits in thick walls, through layers of red veiling.

tenar counted herself lucky not to have been born on so backward and barbaric an island as hur-at-hur, never to have worn the feyag. but she knew what it was to grow up in the grip of an iron tradition. it behooved her to do what she could to help the princess, so long as she was in havnor. but she didn't intend to stay here long.

strolling in the garden, watching the fountains glimmer in starlight, she thought about how and when she could go home.

she did not mind the formalities of court life or the knowledge that under the civility simmered a stew of ambitions, rivalries, passions, complicities, collusions. she had grown up with rituals and hypocrisy and hidden politics, and none of it frightened or worried her. she was simply homesick. she wanted to be back on gont, with ged, in their house.

she had come to havnor because lebannen sent for her and tehanu, and ged if he would come; but ged wouldn't come, and tehanu wouldn't come without her. that did frighten and worry her. could her daughter not break free from her? it was tehanu's counsel lebannen needed, not hers. but her daughter clung to her, as ill at ease, as out of place in the court of havnor as the girl from hur-at-hur was, and like her, silent, in hiding.

so tenar must play nursemaid, tutor, and companion now to both of them, two scared girls who didn't know how to take hold of their power, while she wanted no power on earth except the freedom to go home where she belonged and help ged with the garden.

she wished they could grow white roses like these, at home. their scent was so sweet in the night air. but it was too windy on the overfell, and the sun was too strong in summer. and probably the goats would eat the roses.

she went back indoors at last and made her way through the eastern wing to the suite of rooms she shared with tehanu. her daughter was asleep, for it was late. a flame no bigger than a pearl burned on the wick of a tiny alabaster lamp. the high rooms were soft, shadowy. she blew out the lamp, got into bed, and soon sank towards sleep.

she was walking along a narrow, high-vaulted corridor of stone. she carried the alabaster lamp. its faint oval of light died away into darkness in front of her and behind her. she came to the door of a room that opened off the corridor. inside the room were people with the wings of birds. some had the heads of birds, hawks and vultures. they stood or squatted motionless, not looking at her or at anything, with eyes encircled with white and red. their wings were like huge black cloaks hanging down behind them. she knew they could not fly. they were so mournful, so hopeless, and the air in the room was so foul that she struggled to turn, to run away, but she could not move; and fighting that paralysis, she woke.

there were the warm shadows, the stars in the window, the scent of roses, the soft stir of the city, tehanu's breathing as she slept.

tenar sat up to shake off the remnants of the dream. it had been of the painted room in the labyrinth of the tombs, where she had first met ged face to face, forty years ago. in the dream the paintings on the walls had come to life. only it was not life. it was the endless, timeless unlife of those who died without rebirth: those accursed by the nameless ones: infidels, westerners, sorcerers.

after you died you were reborn. that was the sure knowledge in which she had been brought up. when as a child she was taken to the tombs to be arha, the eaten one, they told her that she alone of all people had been and would be reborn as herself, life after life. sometimes she had believed that, but not always, even when she was the priestess of the tombs, and never since. but she knew what all the people of the kargad lands knew, that when they died they would return in a new body, the lamp that guttered out flickering up again that same instant elsewhere, in a woman's womb or the tiny egg of a minnow or a windborne seed of grass, coming back to be, forgetful of the old life, fresh for the new, life after life eternally.

only those outcast by the earth itself, by the old powers, the dark sorcerers of the hardic lands, were not reborn. when they died-so said the kargs-they did not rejoin the living world, but went to a dreary place of half being where, winged but flightless, neither bird nor human, they must endure without hope. how the priestess kossil had relished telling her about the terrible fate of those boastful enemies of the god-king, their souls doomed to be cast out of the world of light forever!

but the afterlife ged had told her of, where he said his people went, that changeless land of cold dust and shadow-was that any less dreary, any less terrible?

unanswerable questions clamored in her mind: because she was no longer a karg, because she had betrayed the sacred place, must she go to that dry land when she died? must ged go there? would they pass each other there, uncaring? that was not possible. but what if he must go there, and she be reborn, so that their parting must be eternal?

she would not think about all that. it was clear enough why she had dreamed of the painted room, all these years after she had left all that behind her. it had to do with seeing the ambassadors, speaking kargish again, of course. but still she lay upset, unnerved by the dream. she did not want to go back to the nightmares of her youth. she wanted to be back in the house on the overfell, lying by ged, hearing tehanu's breath while she slept. when he slept ged lay still as a stone; but the fire had left some damage in tehanu's throat so there was a little harshness always in her breathing, and tenar had listened to that, listened for it, night after night, year after year. that was life, that was life returning, that dear sound, that slight harsh breath.

listening to it, she slept again at last. if she dreamed it was only of gulfs of air and the colors of morning moving in the sky.

alder woke very early. his little companion had been restless all night, and so had he. he was glad to get up and go to the window and sit sleepily watching light come into the sky over the harbor, fishing boats set out and the sails of ships loom from a low mist in the great bay, and listening to the hum and bustle of the city making ready for the day. about the time he began to wonder if he should venture into the bewilderment of the palace to find what he was supposed to do, there was a knock on his door. a man brought in a tray of fresh fruit and bread, a jug of milk, and a small bowl of meat for the kitten. "i will come to conduct you to the king's presence when the fifth hour is told," he informed alder solemnly, and then rather less formally told him how to get down into the palace gardens if he wanted a walk.

alder knew of course that there were six hours from midnight to noon and six hours from noon to midnight, but had never heard the hours told, and wondered what the man meant.

he learned, presently, that here in havnor four trumpeters went out on the high balcony from which rose the highest tower of the palace, the one that was topped with the slender steel blade of the hero's sword, and at the fourth and fifth hours before noon, and at noon, and at the first, second, and third hours after noon they blew their trumpets one to the west, one to the north, one to the east, one to the south. so the courtiers of the palace and the merchants and shippers of the city could arrange their doings and meet their appointments at the hour agreed. a boy he met walking in the gardens explained all this, a small, thin boy in a tunic that was too long for him. he explained that the trumpeters knew when to blow their trumpets because there were great sand clocks in the tower, as well as the pendulum of ath which hung down from high up in the tower and if set swinging just at the hour would cease to swing just as the next hour began. and he told alder that the tunes the trumpeters played were all parts of the lament for erreth-akbe that king maharion wrote when he came back from selidor, a different part for each hour, but only at noon did they play the whole tune through. and if you wanted to be somewhere at a certain hour, you should keep an eye on the balconies, because the trumpeters always came out a few minutes early, and if the sun was shining they held up their silver trumpets to flash and shine. the boy was called rody and he had come with his father, the lord of metama on ark, to stay a year in havnor, and he went to school in the palace, and he was nine, and he missed his mother and his sister.

alder was back in his room in time to meet his guide, less nervous than he might have been. the conversation with the child had reminded him that the sons of lords were children, that lords were men, and that it was not men he need fear.

his guide brought him through the palace corridors to a long, light room with windows all along one wall, looking out over havnor's towers and fantastic bridges that arched over the canals and leapt from roof to roof and balcony to balcony across the streets. he half saw that panorama as he stood near the door, hesitant, not knowing if he should go forward to the group of people at the far end of the room.

the king saw him and came to him, greeted him kindly, led him to the others, and introduced them one by one.

there was a woman of fifty or so, small and very light-skinned, with greying hair and large grey eyes: tenar, the king said smiling: tenar of the ring. she looked alder in the eye and greeted him quietly.

there was a man of about the king's age, dressed in velvet and airy linens, with jewels on his belt and at his throat and a great ruby stud in his earlobe: shipmaster tosla, said the king. tosla's face, dark as old oak wood, was keen and hard.

there was a middle-aged man, simply dressed, with a steady look that made alder feel he could trust him: prince sege of the house of havnor, said the king.

there was a man of forty or so who carried a wooden staff of his own height, by which alder knew him as a wizard of the school on roke. he had a rather worn face, fine hands, an aloof but courteous manner. master onyx, said the king.

there was a woman whom alder took for a servant because she was very plainly dressed and stayed outside the group, turned half away as if looking out the windows. he saw the beautiful fall of her black hair, heavy and glossy as falling water, as lebannen led her forward. "tehanu of gont," the king said, and his voice rang out like a challenge.

the woman looked straight at alder for a moment. she was young; the left side of her face was smooth copper-rose, a dark bright eye under an arched eyebrow. the right side had been destroyed and was ridged, slabby scar, eyeless. her right hand was like a raven's curled claw.

she put out her hand to alder, in the manner of the people of ea and the enlades, as the others had done, but it was her left hand she held out. he touched his hand to hers, palm to palm. hers was hot, fever hot. she looked at him again, an amazing glance from that one eye, bright, frowning, fierce. then she looked down again and stood back as if she wished not to be one of them, wished not to be there.

"master alder bears a message for you from your father the hawk of gont," the king said, seeing the messenger stand wordless.

tehanu did not lift her head. the glossy black hair almost hid the ruin of her face.

"my lady," alder said, dry-mouthed and husky-voiced, "he bade me ask you two questions." he paused, only because he had to wet his lips and get his breath in a moment of panic that he had forgotten what he was to say; but the pause became a waiting silence.

tehanu said, in a voice hoarser than his, "ask them."

"he said to ask first: who are those who go to the dry land? and as i took my leave of him, he said, ask my daughter also: will a dragon cross the wait of stones?'"

tehanu nodded her head in acknowledgment and stepped back a little more, as if to carry her riddles away with her, away from them.

"the dry land," the king said, "and the dragons..."

his alert gaze went from face to face.

"come," he said, "let's sit and talk."

"perhaps we could talk down in the gardens?" said the little grey-eyed woman, tenar. the king agreed at once. alder heard tenar say to him as they went, "she finds it hard to be indoors all day. she wants the sky."

gardeners brought chairs for them in the shade of a huge old willow beside one of the pools. tehanu went to stand by the pool, gazing down into the green water where a few big silver carp swam lazily. clearly she wanted to think over her father's message, not to talk, though she could hear what they said.

when the others were all settled, the king had alder tell his story yet again. their silence as they listened was compassionate, and he was able to speak without constraint or hurry. when he was done, they remained silent a while, and then the wizard onyx asked him one question: "did you dream last night?"

alder said he had had no dream he could recall.

"i did," onyx said. "i dreamed of the summoner who was my teacher in the school on roke. they say of him that he died twice: because he came back from that country across the wall."

"i dreamed of the spirits that are not reborn," tenar said, very low.

prince sege said, "all night i thought i heard voices down in the city streets, voices i knew from my childhood, calling as they used to do. but when i listened, it was only watchmen or drunken sailors shouting."

"i never dream," said tosla.

"i didn't dream of that country," the king said. "i remembered it. and couldn't cease remembering it."

he looked at the silent woman, tehanu, but she only looked down into the pond and did not speak.

no one else spoke; and alder could not stand it. "if i am a plague bringer, you must send me away!" he said.

the wizard onyx spoke, not imperiously but with finality. "if roke sent you to gont, and gont sent you to havnor, havnor is where you should be."

"many heads make light thinking," said tosla, sardonic.

lebannen said, "let's put dreams aside for a while. our guest needs to know what we were concerned about before he came-why i begged tenar and tehanu to come, earlier this summer, and summoned tosla from his voyaging to take counsel with us. will you tell alder of this matter, tosla?"

the dark-faced man nodded. the ruby in his ear gleamed like a drop of blood.

"the matter is dragons," he said. "in the west reach for some years now they've come to farms and villages on ully and usidero, flying low, seizing the roofs of houses with their talons, shaking them, terrifying the people. in the toringates they've come twice now at harvest time and set the fields burning with their breath, and burnt haystacks and set the thatch of houses afire. they haven't struck at people, but people have died in the fires. they haven't attacked the houses of the lords of those islands, seeking after treasure, the way they did in the dark years, but only the villages and the fields. the same word came from a merchantman who'd been southwest as far as simly trading for grain: dragons had come and burnt the crop just as they were harvesting.

"then, last winter in semel, two dragons settled on the summit of the volcano, mount andanden."

"ah," said onyx, and at the king's inquiring glance: "the wizard seppel of paln tells me that mountain was a most sacred place to the dragons, where they came to drink fire from the earth in ancient days."

"well, they're back," said tosla. "and they come down harrying the herds and flocks that are the wealth of the people there, not hurting the beasts but frightening them so they break loose and run wild. the people say they're young dragons, black and thin, without much fire yet.

"and in paln, there are dragons living now in the mountains of the north part of the island, wild country without farms. hunters used to go there to hunt mountain sheep and catch falcons to tame, but they've been driven out by the dragons, and no one goes near the mountains now. maybe your pelnish wizard knows about them?"

onyx nodded. "he says flights of them have been seen above the mountains like the flights of wild geese."

"between paln and semel, and the island of havnor, is only the width of the pelnish sea," said prince sege.

alder was thinking that it was less than a hundred miles from semel to his own island, taon.

"tosla set out to the dragons' run in his ship the tern" the king said.

"but got barely in sight of the easternmost of those isles before a swarm of the beasts came at me," tosla said, with a hard grin. "they harried me as they do the cattle and sheep, swooping down to singe my sails, till i ran back where i came from. but that's nothing new."

onyx nodded again. "nobody but a dragonlord has ever sailed the dragons' run."

"i have," the king said, and suddenly smiled a broad, boyish smile. "but i was with a dragonlord... now that's a time i've been thinking about. when i was in the west reach with the archmage, seeking cob the necromancer, we passed jessage, which lies even farther out than simly, and we saw burned fields there. and in the dragons' run, we saw that they fought and killed one another like animals gone rabid."

after a time prince sege asked, "could it be that some of those dragons did not recover from their madness in that evil time?"

"it's been fifteen years and more," onyx said. "but dragons live very long. maybe time passes differently for them." alder noticed that as the wizard spoke he glanced at tehanu, standing apart from them by the pool.

"yet only within the last year or two have they attacked people," said the prince.

"that they have not," tosla said. "if a dragon wanted to destroy the people of a farm or village, who'd stop it? they've been after people's livelihood. harvests, hayricks, farms, cattle. they're saying, begone-get out of the west!"

"but why are they saying it with fire, with havoc?" the wizard demanded. "they can speak! they speak the language of the making. morred and erreth-akbe talked with dragons. our archmage talked with them."

"those we saw in the dragons' run," the king said, "had lost the power of speech. the breach cob had made in the world was drawing their power from them, as it did from us.

only the great dragon orm embar came to us and spoke to the archmage, telling him to go to selidor..." he paused, his eyes far away. "and even from orm embar speech was taken, before he died." again he looked away from them, a strange light in his face. "it was for us orm embar died. he opened the way for us into the dark land."

they were all silent for a while. tenar's quiet voice broke the silence. "once sparrowhawk said to me-let me see if i can remember how he said it: that the dragon and the dragon's speech are one thing, one being. that a dragon does not learn the old speech, but is it."

"as a tern is flight. as a fish is swimming," onyx said slowly. "yes."

tehanu was listening, standing motionless by the pool. they all looked at her now. the look on her mother's face was eager, urgent. tehanu turned her head away.

"how do you make a dragon talk to you?" the king said. he said it lightly, as if it were a pleasantry, but it was followed by another silence. "well," he said, "that's something i hope we can learn. now, master onyx, while we're speaking of dragons, will you tell us your story of the girl who came to the school on roke, for none but me has heard it yet."

"a girl in the school!" said tosla, with a scoffing grin. "things have changed on roke!"

"indeed they have," the wizard said, with a long cool look at the sailor. "this was some eight years ago. she came from way, disguised as a young man, wanting to study the art magic. of course her poor disguise didn't fool the doorkeeper. yet he let her in, and he took her part. at that time, the school was headed by the master summoner-the man," and he hesitated a moment, "the man of whom i told you i dreamed last night."

"tell us something of that man, if you will, master onyx," the king said. "that was thorion, who returned from death?"

"yes. when the archmage had been long gone and no word came, we feared he was dead. so the summoner used his arts to go see if indeed he had crossed the wall. he stayed long there, so the masters feared for him too. but at last he woke, and said that the archmage was there among the dead, and would not return himself but had bade thorion return to govern roke. yet before long the dragon bore the archmage sparrowhawk living to us, with my lord lebannen... then when the archmage had departed again, the summoner fell down and lay as if life had gone out of him. the master herbal, with all his art, believed him dead. yet as we made ready to bury him, he moved, and spoke, saying he had come back to life to do what must be done. so, since we were not able to choose a new archmage, thorion the summoner governed the school." he paused. "when the girl came, though the doorkeeper had admitted her, thorion would not have her within the walls. he would have nothing to do with her. but the master patterner took her to the grove, and she lived there some while at the edge of the trees, and walked with him among them. he and the doorkeeper, and the herbal, and kurremkarmerruk the namer, believed that there was a reason she had come to roke, that she was a messenger or an agent of some great event, even if she herself didn't know it; and so they protected her. the other masters followed thorion, who said she brought only dissension and ruin and should be driven out. i was a student then. it was a sore trouble to us to know that our masters, masterless, were quarreling."

"and over a girl," said tosla.

onyx's look at him this time was extremely cold. "quite," he said. after a minute he took up his story. "to be brief, then, when thorion sent a group of us to compel her to leave the island, she challenged him to meet her that evening on roke knoll. he came, and summoned her by her name to obey him: 'irian,' he called her. but she said, 'i am not only irian,' and speaking, she changed. she became-she took the form of a dragon. she touched thorion and his body fell to dust. then she climbed the hill, and watching her, we didn't know whether we saw a woman that burned like a fire, or a winged beast. but at the summit we saw her clearly, a dragon like a flame of red and gold. and she lifted up her wings and flew into the west."

his voice had grown soft and his face was full of the remembered awe. nobody spoke.

the wizard cleared his throat. "before she went up the hill the namer asked her, 'who are you?' she said she did not know her other name. the patterner spoke to her, asking where she would go and whether she would come back. she said she was going beyond the west, to learn her name from her own people, but if he called her she would come."

in the silence, a hoarse, weak voice, like metal brushing on metal, spoke. alder did not understand the words and yet they seemed familiar, as if he could almost remember what they meant.

tehanu had come close to the wizard and was standing by him, bending to him, tense as a drawn bow. it was she who had spoken.

startled and taken aback, the wizard stared up at her, got to his feet, backed off a step, and then controlling himself said, "yes, those were her words: my people, beyond the west."

"call her. oh, call her," tehanu whispered, reaching out both her hands to him. again he drew back involuntarily.

tenar stood up and murmured to her daughter, "what is it, what is it, tehanu?"

tehanu stared round at them all. alder felt as if he were a wraith she saw through. "call her here," she said. she looked at the king. "can you call her?"

"i have no such power. perhaps the patterner of roke-perhaps you yourself-"

tehanu shook her head violently. "no, no, no, no," she whispered. "i am not like her. i have no wings."

lebannen looked at tenar as if for guidance. tenar looked miserably at her daughter.

tehanu turned round and faced the king. "i'm sorry," she said, stiffly, in her weak, harsh voice. "i have to be alone, sir. i will think about what my father said. i will try to answer what he asked. but i have to be alone, please."

lebannen bowed to her and glanced at tenar, who went at once to her daughter and put an arm about her; and they went away on the sunny path by the pools and fountains.

the four men sat down again and said nothing for a few minutes.

lebannen said, "you were right, onyx," and to the others, "master onyx told me this tale of the woman-dragon irian after i told him something about tehanu. how as a child tehanu summoned the dragon kalessin to gont, and spoke with the dragon in the old speech, and kalessin called her daughter."

"sire, this is very strange, this is a strange time, when a dragon is a woman, and when an untaught girl speaks in the language of the making!" onyx was deeply and obviously shaken, frightened. alder saw that, and wondered why he himself felt no such fear. probably, he thought, because he did not know enough to be afraid, or what to be afraid of.

"but there are old stories," tosla said. "haven't you heard them on roke? maybe your walls keep them out. they're only tales simple people tell. songs, even. there's a sailors' song, 'the lass of belilo,' that tells how a sailor left a pretty girl weeping in every port, until one of the pretty girls flew after his boat on wings of brass and snatched him out of it and ate him."

onyx looked at tosla with disgust. but lebannen smiled and said, "the woman of kemay... the archmage's old master, aihal, called ogion, told tenar about her. she was an old village woman, and lived as such. she invited ogion into her cottage and served him fish soup. but she said mankind and dragonkind had once been one. she herself was a dragon as well as a woman. and being a mage, ogion saw her as a dragon."

"as you saw irian, onyx," said lebannen.

speaking stiffly and addressing himself to the king only, onyx said, "after irian left roke, the master namer showed us passages in the most ancient lore-books which had always been obscure, but which could be understood to speak of beings both human and dragon. and of a quarrel or great division among them. but none of this is clear to our understanding."

"i hoped that tehanu might make it clear," lebannen said. his voice was even, so that alder did not know whether he had given up or still held that hope.

a man was hurrying down the path to them, a greyheaded soldier of the king's guards. lebannen looked round, stood up, went to him. they conferred for a minute, low-voiced. the soldier strode off again; the king turned back to his companions. "here is news," he said, the ring of challenge in his voice again. "over the west of havnor there have been great flights of dragons. they have set forests afire, and a coaster's crew say people fleeing down to south port told them the town of resbel is burning."

that night the king's swiftest ship carried him and his party across the bay of havnor, running fast before the magewind onyx raised. they came into the mouth of the onneva river, under the shoulder of mount onn, at daybreak. with them eleven horses were disembarked, fine, strong, slender-legged creatures from the royal stables. horses were rare on all the islands but havnor and semel. tehanu knew donkeys well enough but had never seen a horse before. she had spent much of the night with them and their handlers, helping control and calm them. they were well-bred, mannerly horses but not used to sea voyages. when it came time to mount them, there on the sands of the onneva, onyx was fairly daunted, and had to be coached and encouraged by the handlers, but tehanu was up in the saddle as soon as the king. she put the reins in her crippled hand and did not use them, seeming to communicate with her mare by other means.

so the little caravan set off due west into the foothills of tie falierns, keeping up a good pace. it was the swiftest way travel that lebannen had at his disposal; to coast clear around south havnor would take too long. they had the wizard onyx with them to keep the weather favorable, clear the path of any obstacles, and defend them from any harm short dragon fire. against the dragons, if they encountered them, they had no defense at all, except perhaps tehanu.

taking counsel the evening before with his advisors and the officers of his guard, lebannen had quickly concluded lat there was no way to fight the dragons or protect the owns and fields from them: arrows were useless, shields were useless. only the greatest mages had ever been able to defeat a dragon. he had no such mage in his service and new of none now living, but he must defend his people as 3est he could, and he knew no way to do it but to try to parley with the dragons.

his maiordomo had been shocked when he set off for the apartment where tenar and tehanu were: the king should send for those he wished to see, command them to come to him. "not if he's going to beg from them," lebannen said.

he told the startled maid who answered their door to ask if he might speak with the white lady and the woman of gont. so they were known to the people of the palace and the city. that each bore her true name openly, as the king did, was so rare a matter, so defiant of rule and custom, of safety and propriety, that though people might know the name they were reluctant to say it and preferred to speak around it.

he was admitted, and having told them briefly the news he had received, said, "tehanu, it may be that you alone in my kingdom can help me. if you can call to these dragons as you called to kalessin, if you have any power over them, if you can speak to them and ask why they war on my people, will you do so?"

the young woman shrank from his words, turning towards her mother.

but tenar did not offer her any shelter. she stood unmoving. after a while she said, "tehanu, long ago i told you: when a king speaks to you, you answer. you were a child then, and didn't answer. you're not a child now."

tehanu took a step back from them both. like a child, she hung her head. "i can't call to them," she said in her faint, harsh voice. "i don't know them."

"can you call kalessin?" lebannen asked.

she shook her head. "too far away," she whispered. "i don't know where."

"but you are kalessin's daughter," tenar said. "can you not speak to these dragons?"

she said wretchedly, "i don't know."

lebannen said, "if there is any chance, tehanu, that they'll talk to you, that you can talk to them, i beg you to take that chance. for i can't fight them, and don't know their language, and how can i find what they want of us from creatures who can destroy me with a breath, with a look? will you speak for me, for us?"

she was silent. then, so faintly he could barely hear it, she said, "yes."

"then make ready to travel with me. we leave by the fourth hour of the evening. my people will bring you to the ship. i thank you. and i thank you, tenar!" he said, taking her hand a moment, but no longer, for he had much to see to before he went.

when he came down to the wharf, late and hurrying, there was the slender hooded figure. the last horse to be led onboard was snorting and bracing its feet, refusing to go up the gangplank. tehanu seemed to be conferring with the idler. presently she took the horse's bridle and talked to it little, and they went up the gangplank quietly together.

ships are small, crowded houses; lebannen heard two of the hostlers talking softly on the afterdeck towards mid-light. "she has the true hand," one said, and the other, a younger voice, "aye, she does, but she's horrible to look at, ain't she?" the first one said, "if a horse don't mind it, why should you?" and the other, "i don't know, but i do."

now, as they rode from the onneva sands into the foothills, where the way widened, tosla brought his horse up beside lebannen's. "she's to be our interpreter, is she?" he said.

"if she can."

"well, she's braver than i'd have thought. if that happened to her the first time she talked with a dragon, its likely to happen again."

"what do you mean?"

"she was half burnt to death."

"not by a dragon."

"who then?"

"the people she was born to."

"how was that?" tosla asked with a grimace.

"tramps, thieves. she was five or six years old. whatever she did or they did, it ended in her being beaten unconscious and shoved into their campfire. thinking, i suppose, she was dead or would die and it would be taken for an accident. they made off. villagers found her, and tenar took her in."

tosla scratched his ear. "there's a pretty tale of human kindness. so she's no daughter of the old archmage either? but then what do they mean saying she's a dragons get?"

lebannen had sailed with tosla, had fought beside him years ago in the siege of sorra, and knew him a brave, keen, coolheaded man. when tosla's coarseness chafed him he blamed his own thin skin. "i don't know what they mean," he answered mildly. "all i know is, the dragon called her daughter."

"that roke wizard of yours, that onyx, is quick to say he's no use in this matter. but he can speak the old tongue, can't he?"

"yes. he could wither you into ash with a few words of it. if he hasn't it's out of respect for me, not you, i think."

tosla nodded. "i know that," he said. they rode all that day at as quick a pace as the horses could keep, coming at nightfall to a little hill town where the horses could be fed and rested and the riders could sleep in variously uncomfortable beds. those of them unused to riding now discovered they could barely walk. the people there had heard nothing about dragons, and were overwhelmed only by the terror and glory of a whole party of rich strangers riding in and wanting oats and beds and paying for them with silver and gold.

the riders set off again long before dawn. it was nearly a hundred miles from the sands of onneva to resbel. this second day would take them over the low pass of the faliern mountains and down the western side. yenay, one of lebannen's most trusted officers, rode well ahead of the others; tosla was rear guard; lebannen led the main group. he was jogging along half asleep in the dull quiet before dawn when hoofbeats coming towards him woke him. yenay had come riding back. lebannen looked up where the man was pointing.

they had just emerged from woods on the crest of an open hillside and could see through the clear half light all the way to the pass. the mountains to either side of it massed black against the dull reddish glow of a cloudy dawn.

but they were looking west.

"that's nearer than resbel," yenay said. "fifteen miles, maybe."

tehanus mare, though small, was the finest of the lot, and had a strong conviction that she should lead the others. if tehanu didn't hold her back she would keep sidling and overtaking till she was ahead of the line. the mare came up at once when lebannen reined in his big horse, and so tehanu was beside him now, looking where he looked.

"the forest is burning," he said to her.

he could see only the scarred side of her face, so she seemed to gaze blindly; but she saw, and her claw hand that held the reins was trembling. the burned child fears the fire, he thought.

what cruel, cowardly folly had possessed him to tell this girl, "come talk to the dragons, save my skin!" and bring her straight into the fire?

"we will turn back," he said.

tehanu raised her good hand, pointing. "look," she said. "look!"

a spark from a bonfire, a burning cinder rising over the black line of the pass, an eagle of flame soaring, a dragon flying straight at them.

tehanu stood up in her stirrups and let out a piercing, scraping cry, like a sea bird's or a hawk's scream, but it was a word, one word: "medeu!"

the great creature drew nearer with terrible speed, its long, thin wings beating almost lazily; it had lost the reflection of fire and looked black or bronze-colored in the growing light.

"mind your horses," tehanu said in her cracked voice, and just then lebannen's grey gelding saw the dragon and started violently, tossing its head and backing. he could control it, but behind him one of the other horses let out a neigh of terror, and he heard them trampling and the handlers' voices. the wizard onyx came running up and stood beside lebannen's horse. mounted or afoot, they stood and watched the dragon come.

again tehanu cried out that word. the dragon veered in its flight, slowed, came on, stopped and hovered in the air about fifty feet from them.

"medeu!" tehanu called, and the answer came like an echo prolonged: "me-de-uuu!"

"what does it mean?" lebannen asked, bending to onyx.

"sister, brother," the wizard whispered.

tehanu was off her horse, had tossed the reins to yenay, was walking forward down the slight slope to where the dragon hovered, its long wings beating quick and short like a hovering hawk's. but these wings were fifty feet from tip to tip, and as they beat they made a sound like kettledrums or rattles of brass. as she came closer to it, a little curl of fire escaped from the dragon's long, long-toothed, open mouth.

she held up her hand. not the slender brown hand but the burned one, the claw. the scarring of her arm and shoulder kept her from raising it fully. she could reach barely as high as her head.

the dragon sank a little in the air, lowered its head, and touched her hand with its lean, flared, scaled snout. like a dog, an animal greeting and sniffing, lebannen thought; like a falcon stooping to the wrist; like a king bowing to a queen.

tehanu spoke, the dragon spoke, both briefly, in their cymbal-shiver voices. another exchange, a pause; the dragon spoke at length. onyx listened intently. one more exchange of words. a wisp of smoke from the dragon's nostrils; a stiff, imperious gesture of the woman's crippled, withered hand. she spoke clearly two words.

"bring her," the wizard translated in a whisper.

the dragon beat its wings hard, lowered its long head, and hissed, spoke again, then sprang up into the air, high over tehanu, turned, wheeled once, and set off like an arrow to the west.

"it called her daughter of the eldest," the wizard whispered, as tehanu stood motionless, watching the dragon go.

she turned around, looking small and fragile in that great sweep of hill and forest in the grey dawn light. leban-nen swung off his horse and hurried forward to her. he thought to find her drained and terrified, he put out his hand to help her walk, but she smiled at him. her face, half terrible half beautiful, shone with the red light of the unrisen sun.

"they won't strike again. they will wait in the mountains," she said.

then indeed she looked around as if she did not know where she was, and when lebannen took her arm she let him do so; but the fire and the smile lingered in her face, and she walked lightly.

while the hostlers held the horses, already grazing on the dew-wet grass, onyx, tosla, and yenay came round her, though they kept a respectful distance. onyx said, "my lady tehanu, i have never seen so brave an act."

"nor i," tosla said.

"i was afraid," tehanu said, in her voice that carried no emotion. "but i called him brother, and he called me sister."

"i could not understand all you said," the wizard said. "i have no such knowledge of the old speech as you. will you tell us what passed between you?"

she spoke slowly, her eyes on the west where the dragon had flown. the dull red of the distant fire was paling as the east grew bright. "i said, 'why are you burning the king's island?' and he said, 'it is time we have our own lands again.' and i said, 'did the eldest bid you take them with fire?'

then he said that the eldest, kalessin, had gone with orm irian beyond the west to fly on the other wind. and he said the young dragons who remained here on the winds of the world say men are oath breakers who stole the dragons' lands. they tell one another that kalessin will never return, and they will wait no longer, but will drive men out of all the western lands. but lately orm irian has returned, and is on paln, he said. and i told him to ask her to come. and he said she would come to kalessin's daughter."