the dragon council
from the window of her room in the palace tenar had watched the ship sail, carrying lebannen and her daughter away into the night. she had not gone down to the wharf with tehanu. it had been hard, very hard to refuse to come with her on this journey. tehanu had begged, she who never asked for anything. she never cried, could not cry, but her breath had caught sobbing: "but i can't go, i can't go alone! come with me, mother!"
"my love, my heart, if i could spare you this fear i would, don't you see i can't? i've done what i could do for you, my flame of fire, my star. the king is right-only you, you alone, can do this."
"but if you were just there, so i knew you were there-"
"i'm here, i'm always here. what could i do there but be a burden? you must travel fast, it will be a hard journey. i'd hold you back. and you might fear for me. you don't need me. i'm no use to you. you must learn that. you must go, tehanu."
and she had turned away from her child and begun sorting out the clothing tehanu should take, home clothes, not the fancy things they wore here in the palace: her stout shoes, her good cloak if she wept while she did it, she did not let her daughter see it.
tehanu stood as if bewildered, paralysed with fear. when tenar gave her clothes to change into, she obeyed. when the king's lieutenant, yenay, knocked and asked if he might conduct mistress tehanu down to the wharf, she stared at him like a dumb animal.
"go now," tenar said. she embraced her and laid her hand on the great scar that was half her face. "you are kalessin's daughter as well as mine."
the girl held her very tightly for a long moment, let go, turned away without a word, and followed yenay out the door.
tenar stood feeling the chill of the night air where the heat of tehanu's body and arms had been.
she went over to the window. lights down on the dock, the coming and going of men, the hoof clatter of horses being led down the steep streets above the water. a tall ship was at the pier, a ship she knew, the dolphin. she watched from the window and saw tehanu on the dock. she saw her go aboard at last, leading a horse that had been balking, and saw lebannen follow her. she saw the mooring lines cast off, the docile movement of the ship following the oared tug that towed her clear, the sudden fall and flowering of the white sails in the darkness. the light of the stern lantern trembled on the dark water, shrank slowly to a tiny drop of brightness, and was gone.
tenar went about the room folding up the clothes tehanu had worn, the silken shift and overskirt; she picked up the light sandals and held them to her cheek a while before she put them away.
she lay awake in the wide bed and saw before her mind's eye over and over again the same scene: a road, and tehanu walking on it alone. and a knot, a net, a black writhing coiling mass descending from the sky, dragons swarming, fire licking and streaming from them at her, her hair burning, her clothes burning-no, tenar said, no! it will not happen! she would force her mind away from that scene, until she saw it again, the road, and tehanu walking on it alone, and the black, burning knot in the sky, coming closer.
when the first light began to turn the room grey she slept at last, exhausted. she dreamed that she was in the old mage's house on the overfell, her house, and she was glad beyond all words to be there. she took the broom from behind the door to sweep the shining oaken floor, for ged had let it get dusty. but there was a door at the back of the house that had not been there before. when she opened it she found a small, low room with stone walls painted white. ged was crouching in the room, squatting with his arms on his knees and his hands hanging limp. his head was not a man's head but small, black, and beaked, a vulture's head. he said in a faint, hoarse voice, "tenar, i have no wings." and when he said that, such anger and terror rose up in her that she woke, gasping, to see sunlight on the high wall of her palace room and hear the sweet clear trumpets telling the fourth hour of morning.
breakfast was brought. she ate a little and talked with berry, the elderly servant whom she had chosen from all the retinue of maids and ladies of honor lebannen had offered her. berry was an intelligent, competent woman, born in a village in inland havnor, with whom tenar got on better than with most of the ladies of the court. they were civil and respectful, but they didn't know what to do with her, how to talk to a woman who was half kargish priestess, half farmwife from gont. she saw that it was easier for them to be kind to tehanu in her fierce timidity. they could be sorry for her. they could not be sorry for tenar.
berry, however, could be and was, and she gave tenar considerable comfort that morning. "the king will bring her back safe and sound," she said. "why, do you think he'd take the girl into a danger he couldn't get her out of? never! not him!" it was false comfort, but berry so passionately believed it to be true that tenar had to agree with her, which was a little solace in itself.
she needed something to do, for tehanu's absence was everywhere. she resolved to go talk to the kargish princess, to see if the girl was willing to learn a word of hardic, or at least to tell tenar her name.
in the kargad lands people did not have a true name that they kept secret, as the speakers of hardic did. like use-names here, kargish names often had some meaning-rose, alder, honor, hope; or they were traditional, often the name of an ancestor. people spoke them openly and were proud of the antiquity of a name passed down from generation to generation. she had been taken too young from her parents to know why they had called her tenar, but thought it might be for a grandmother or great-grandmother. that name had been taken from her when she was recognised as arha, the nameless one reborn, and she had forgotten it till ged gave it back to her. to her, as to him, it was her true name; but it was not a word of the old speech; it gave no one any power over her, and she had never concealed it.
she was puzzled now why the princess did so. her bondwomen called her only princess, or lady, or mistress; the ambassadors had talked about her as the high princess, daughter of thol, lady of hur-at-hur, and so on. if all the poor girl had was titles, it was time she had a name.
tenar knew it was not fitting for a guest of the king to go alone through the streets of havnor, and she knew berry had duties in the palace, so she asked for a servant to accompany her. she was provided with a charming footman, or footboy, for he was only about fifteen, who looked after her at the street crossings as if she were a doddering crone. she liked walking in the city. she had already found and admitted to herself, going to the river house, that it was easier without tehanu beside her. people would look at tehanu and look away, and tehanu walked in stiff, suffering pride, hating their looks and their looking away, and tenar suffered with her, maybe more than she herself did.
now she was able to loiter and watch the street shows, the market booths, the various faces and clothing from all over the archipelago, to go out of the direct way to let her footboy show her a street where the painted bridges from rooftop to rooftop made a kind of airy vaulted ceiling high above them, from which red-flowering vines looped down in festoons, and people put birdcages out the windows on gilt poles among the flowers, so that it all seemed a garden in the middle of the air. "oh, i wish tehanu could see this," she thought. but she could not think of tehanu, of where she might be.
the river house, like the new palace, dated from the reign of queen heru, five centuries ago. it had been in ruins when lebannen came to the throne; he had rebuilt it with much care, and it was a lovely, peaceful place, sparsely furnished, with dark, polished, uncarpeted floors. ranks of narrow door-windows slid aside to open up the whole side of a room to a view of the willows and the river, and one could walk out onto deep wooden balconies built over the water. court ladies had told tenar that it had been the place the king liked best to slip away to for a night of solitude or a night with a lover, which lent even more significance, they hinted, to his housing the princess there. her own suspicion was that he had not wanted the princess under the same roof with him and had simply named the only other possible place for her, but maybe the court ladies were right.
guards in their fine harness recognised and let her pass, footmen announced her and went off with her footboy to crack nuts and gossip, which seemed to be the principal occupation of footmen, and ladies-in-waiting came to greet her, grateful for any new face and gasping for more news of the king's expedition against the dragons. having run the whole gamut she was admitted at last to the apartments of the princess.
on her two previous visits she had been kept waiting some while in an anteroom, and then the veiled bondwomen had brought her into an inner room, the only dim room in the whole airy house, where the princess had stood in her round-brimmed hat with the red veil hanging down all round it to the floor, looking permanently fixed there, built in, exactly as if she were a brick chimney, as lady lyesa had said.
this time it was different. as soon as she came into the anteroom there was shrieking within and the sound of people running in various directions. the princess burst through the door and with a wild cry flung her arms around tenar. tenar was small, and the princess, a tall, vigorous young woman full of emotion, knocked her right off her feet, but held her up in strong arms. "oh lady arha, lady arha, save me, save me!" she was crying.
"princess! what's wrong?"
the princess was in tears of terror or relief or both at once, and all tenar could understand of her laments and pleas was a babble of dragons and sacrifice.
"there are no dragons near havnor," she said sternly, disengaging herself from the girl, "and nobody is being sacrificed. what is all this about? what have you been told?"
"the women said the dragons were coming and they'd sacrifice a king's daughter and not a goat because they're sorcerers and i was afraid." the princess wiped her face, clenched her hands, and began trying to master the panic she had been in. it had been real, ungovernable terror, and tenar was sorry for her. she did not let her pity show. the girl needed to learn to hold on to her dignity.
"your women are ignorant and don't know enough hardic to understand what people tell them. and you don't know any hardic at all. if you did you'd know there's nothing to be afraid of. do you see the people of the house here rushing about weeping and screaming?"
the princess stared at her. she wore no hat, no veils, and only a light shift-dress, for it was a hot day. it was the first time tenar had seen her except as a dim form through the red veiling. though the princess's eyes were swollen with tears and her face blotched, she was magnificent: tawny-haired, tawny-eyed, with round arms and full breasts and slender waist, a woman in her first full beauty and strength.
"but none of those people is going to be sacrificed," she said finally.
"nobody is going to be sacrificed."
"then why are the dragons coming?"
tenar drew a deep breath. "princess," she said, "there are a great many things we need to talk about. if you'll look at me as your friend-"
"i do," the princess said. she stepped forward and took tenar's right arm in a very strong grasp. "you are my friend, i have no other friend, i will shed my blood for you."
ridiculous as it was, tenar knew it was true.
she returned the girl's grip as well as she could and said, "you are my friend. tell me your name."
the princess's eyes got big. there was a little snot and blubber still on her upper lip. her lower lip trembled. she said, with a deep breath, "seserakh."
"seserakh: my name is not arha, but tenar."
"tenar," the girl said, and grasped her arm tighter.
"now," tenar said, trying to regain control of the situation, "i have walked a long way and i'm thirsty. please let's sit down, and may i have some water to drink? and then we can talk."
"yes," said the princess, and leapt out of the room like a hunting lioness. there were shouts and cries from the inner rooms, and more sounds of running. a bondwoman appeared, adjusting her veil shakily and gibbering something in such thick dialect tenar could not understand her. "speak in the accursed tongue!" shouted the princess from within, and the woman pitifully squeaked out in hardic, "to sit? to drink? lady?"
two chairs had been set in the middle of the dark, stuffy room, facing each other. seserakh stood beside one of them.
"i should like to sit outside, in the shade, over the water," tenar said. "if it please you, princess."
the princess shouted, the women scuttled, the chairs were carried out onto the deep balcony. they sat down side by side.
"that's better," tenar said. it was still strange to her to be speaking kargish. she had no difficulty with it at all, but she felt as if she were not herself, were somebody else speaking, an actor enjoying her role.
"you like the water?" the princess asked. her face had returned to its normal color, that of heavy cream, and her eyes, no longer swollen, were bluish gold, or blue with gold flecks.
"yes. you don't?"
"i hate it. there was no water where i lived."
"a desert? i lived in a desert too. until i was sixteen. then i crossed the sea and came west. i love the water, the sea, the rivers."
"oh, the sea," seserakh said, shrinking and putting her head in her hands. "oh i hate it, i hate it. i vomited my soul out. over and over and over. days and days and days. i never want to see the sea again." she shot a quick glance through the willow boughs at the quiet, shallow stream below them. "this river is all right," she said distrustfully.
a woman brought a tray with a pitcher and cups, and tenar had a long drink of cool water.
"princess," she said, "we have a great deal to talk about. first: the dragons are still a long way away, in the west. the king and my daughter have gone to talk with them."
"to talk with them?"
"yes." she had been going to say more, but she said, "now please tell me about the dragons in hur-at-hur."
tenar had been told as a child in atuan that there were dragons in hur-at-hur. dragons in the mountains, brigands in the deserts. hur-at-hur was poor and far away and nothing good came from it but opals and turquoises and cedar logs.
seserakh heaved a deep sigh. tears came into her eyes. "it makes me cry to think about home," she said, with such pure simplicity of feeling that tears came into tenar's eyes too. "well, the dragons live up in the mountains. two days, three days journey from mesreth. it's all rocks up there and nobody bothers the dragons and they don't bother anybody. but once a year they come down, crawling down a certain way. it's a path, all smooth dust, made by their bellies crawling along it every year since time began. it's called the dragons' way." she saw that tenar was listening with deep attention, and went on. "it's taboo to cross the dragons' way. you mustn't set foot on it at all. you have to go clear round it, south of the place of the sacrifice. they start crawling down it late in spring. on the fourth day of the fifth month they've all arrived at the place of the sacrifice. none of them is ever late. and everybody from mesreth and the villages is there waiting for them. and then, when they've all come down the dragons' way, the priests begin the sacrifice. and that's... don't you have the spring sacrifice, in atuan?"
tenar shook her head.
"well, that's why i got scared, you see, because it can be a human sacrifice. if things weren't going well, they'd sacrifice a king's daughter. otherwise it would just be some ordinary girl. but they haven't done even that for a long time. not since i was little. since my father defeated all the other kings. since then, they've only sacrificed a she-goat and a ewe. and they catch the blood in bowls, and throw the fat into the sacred fire, and call to the dragons. and the dragons all come crawling up. they drink the blood and eat the fire." she shut her eyes for a moment; so did tenar. "then they go back up into the mountains, and we go back to mesreth."
"how big are the dragons?"
seserakh put her hands about a yard apart. "sometimes bigger," she said.
"and they can't fly? or speak?"
"oh, no. their wings are just little stubs. they make a kind of hissing. animals can't talk. but they're sacred animals. they're the sign of life, because fire is life, and they eat fire and spit out fire. and they're sacred because they come to the spring sacrifice. even if no people came, the dragons would come and gather at that place. we come there because the dragons do. the priests always tell all about that before the sacrifice."
tenar absorbed this for a while. "the dragons here in the west," she said, "are large. huge. and they can fly. they're animals, but they can speak. and they are sacred. and dangerous."
"well," the princess said, "dragons may be animals, but they're more like us than the accursed-sorcerers are."
she said "accursed-sorcerers" all as one word and without any particular emphasis. tenar remembered that phrase from her childhood. it meant the dark folk, the hardic people of the archipelago.
"why is that?"
"because the dragons are reborn! like all the animals. like us." seserakh looked at tenar with frank curiosity. "i thought since you were a priestess at the most sacred place of the tombs you'd know a lot more about all that than i do."
"but we had no dragons there," tenar said. "i didn't learn anything about them at all. please, my friend, tell me."
"well, let me see if i can tell the story about it. it's a winter story. i guess it's all right to tell it in summer here. everything here is all wrong anyway." she sighed. "well, in the beginning, you know, in the first time, we were all the same, all the people and the animals, we did the same things. and then we learned how to die. and so we learned how to be reborn. maybe as one kind of being, maybe another. but it doesn't matter so much because anyhow you'll die again and get reborn again and get to be everything sooner or later."
tenar nodded. so far, the story was familiar to her.
"but the best things to get reborn as are people and dragons, because those are the sacred beings. so you try not to break the taboos, and you try to observe the precepts, so you have a better chance to be a person again, or anyhow a dragon... if dragons here can talk and are so big, i can see why that would be a reward. being one of ours never seemed like much to look forward to.
"but the story is about the accursed-sorcerers discovering the vedurnan. that was a thing, i don't know what it was, that told some people that if they'd agree never to die and never be reborn, they could learn how to do sorcery. so they chose that, they chose the vedurnan. and they went off into the west with it. and it turned them dark. and they live here. all these people here-they're the ones who chose the vedurnan. they live, and they can do their accursed sorceries, but they can't die. only their bodies die. the rest of them stays in a dark place and never gets reborn. and they look like birds. but they can't fly."
"yes," tenar whispered.
"you didn't learn about that on aruan?"
"no," tenar said.
her mind was recalling the story the woman of kemay told ogion: in the beginning of time, mankind and the dragons had been one, but the dragons chose wildness and freedom, and mankind chose wealth and power. a choice, a separation. was it the same story?
but the image in tenar's heart was of ged squatting in a stone room, his head small, black, beaked...
"the vedurnan isn't that ring, is it, that they kept talking about, that i'm going to have to wear?"
tenar tried to force her mind away from the painted room and from last night's dream to seserakh's question.
"ring?"
"urthakby's ring."
"erreth-akbe. no. that ring is the ring of peace. and you'll wear it only if and when you're king lebannen's queen. and you'll be a lucky woman to be that."
seserakh's expression was curious. it was not sullen or cynical. it was hopeless, half humorous, patient, the expression of a woman decades older. "there is no luck about it, dear friend tenar," she said. "i have to marry him. and so i will be lost."
"why are you lost if you marry him?"
"if i marry him i have to give him my name. if he speaks my name, he steals my soul. that's what the accursed-sorcerers do. so they always hide their names. but if he steals my soul, i won't be able to die. i'll have to live forever without my body, a bird that can't fly, and never be reborn."
"that's why you hid your name?"
"i gave it to you, my friend."
"i honor the gift, my friend," tenar said energetically. "but you can say your name to anybody you want, here. they can't steal your soul with it. believe me, seserakh. and you can trust him. he doesn't-he won't do you any harm."
the girl had caught her hesitation. "but he wishes he could," she said. "tenar my friend, i know what i am, here.
in that big city awabath where my father is, i was a stupid ignorant desert woman. afeyagat. the city women sniggered and poked each other whenever they saw me, the barefaced whores. and here it's worse. i can't understand anybody and they can't understand me, and everything, everything is different! i don't even know what the food is, it's sorcerer food, it makes me dizzy. i don't know what the taboos are, there aren't any priests to ask, only sorcerer women, all black and barefaced. and i saw the way he looked at me. you can see out of the feyag, you know! i saw his face. he's very handsome, he looks like a warrior, but he's a black sorcerer and he hates me. don't say he doesn't, because i know he does. and i think when he learns my name he'll send my soul to that place forever."
after a while, gazing into the moving branches of the willows over the softly moving water, feeling sad and weary, tenar said, "what you need to do, then, princess, is learn how to make him like you. what else can you do?" seserakh shrugged mournfully. "it would help if you understood what he said."
"bagabba-bagabba. they all sound like that."
"and we sound like that to them. come on, princess, how can he like you if all you can say to him is bagabba-bagabba? look," and she held up her hand, pointed to it with the other, and said the word first in kargish, then in hardic.
seserakh repeated both words in a dutiful tone. after a few more body parts she suddenly grasped the potentialities of translation. she sat up straighter. "how do sorcerers say 'king'?"
"agni. it's a word of the old speech. my husband told me that."
she realised as she spoke that it was foolish to bring up the existence of yet a third language at this point; but that was not what caught the princess's attention.
"you have a husband?" seserakh stared at her with luminous, leonine eyes, and laughed aloud. "oh, how wonderful! i thought you were a priestess! oh please, my friend, tell me about him! is he a warrior? is he handsome? do you love him?"
after the king went dragon hunting, alder had no idea what to do; he felt utterly useless, unjustified in staying in the palace eating the king's food, guilty for the trouble he had brought with him. he could not sit all day in his room, so he went out into the streets, but the splendor and activity of the city were daunting to him, and having no money or purpose all he could do was walk till he was tired. he would come back to the palace of maharion wondering if the stern-faced guards would readmit him. the nearest he came to peace was in the palace gardens. he hoped to meet rody there again, but the child did not appear, and perhaps that was as well. alder thought that he should not talk with people. the hands that reached to him from death would reach out to them.
on the third day after the king's departure he went down to walk among the garden pools. the day had been very hot; the evening was still and sultry. he brought tug with him and let the little cat loose to stalk insects under the bushes, while he sat on a bench near the big willow and watched the silver-green glimmer of fat carp in the water. he felt lonely and discouraged; he felt his defense against the voices and the reaching hands was breaking down. what was the good of being here, after all? why not go into the dream once and for all, go down that hill, be done with it? nobody in the world would grieve for him, and his death would spare them this sickness he had brought with him. surely they had enough to do fighting dragons. maybe if he went there he would see lily.
if he was dead they could not touch each other. the wizards said they would not even want to. they said the dead forgot what it was to be alive. but lily had reached to him. at first, for a little while, maybe they would remember life long enough to look at each other, to see each other, even if they did not touch.
"alder."
he looked up slowly at the woman who stood near him. the small grey woman, tenar. he saw the concern in her face, but did not know why she was troubled. then he remembered that her daughter, the burned girl, had gone with the king. maybe there had been bad news. maybe they were all dead.
"are you ill, alder?" she asked.
he shook his head. it was hard to talk. he understood now how easy it would be, in that other land, not to speak. not to meet people's eyes. not to be troubled.
she sat down on the bench beside him. "you look troubled," she said.
he made a vague gesture-it's all right, it's no matter.
"you were on gont. with my husband sparrowhawk. how was he? was he looking after himself?"
"yes," alder said. he tried to answer more adequately. "he was the kindest of hosts."
"i'm glad to hear that," she said. "i worry about him. he keeps house as well as i do, but still, i didn't like leaving him alone... please, would you tell me what he was doing while you were there?"
he told her that sparrowhawk had picked the plums and taken them to sell, that the two of them had mended the fence, that sparrowhawk had helped him sleep.
she listened intently, seriously, as if these small matters were as weighty as the strange events they had talked about here three days ago-the dead calling to a living man, a girl becoming a dragon, dragons setting fire to the islands of the west.
indeed he did not know what weighed more heavily after all, the great strange things or the small common ones.
"i wish i could go home," the woman said.
"i could wish the same thing, but it would be in vain. i think i'll never go home again." he did not know why he said it, but heard himself say it and thought it was true.
she looked at him a minute with her quiet grey eyes and asked no question.
"i could wish my daughter would go home with me," she said, "but it would be in vain, too. i know she must go on. i don't know where."
"will you tell me what gift it is that she has, what woman she is, that the king sent for her, and took her with him to meet the dragons?"
"oh, if i knew what she is, i'd tell you," tenar said, her voice full of grief and love and bitterness. "she's not my daughter born, as you may have guessed or known. she came to me a little child, saved from the fire, but only barely and not wholly saved... when sparrowhawk came back to me she became his daughter too. and she kept both him and me from a cruel death, by summoning a dragon, kalessin, called eldest. and that dragon called her daughter. so she's the child of many and none, spared no pain yet spared from the fire. who she is in truth i may never know. but i wish she were here now, safe with me!"
he wanted to reassure her, but his own heart was too low.
"tell me a little more about your wife, alder," she said.
"i cannot," he said at last into the silence that lay easily between them. "i would if i could, lady tenar. there's such a heaviness in me, and a dread and fear, tonight. i try to think of lily, but there's only that dark desert going down and down, and i can't see her in it. all the memories i had of her, that were like water and breath to me, have gone into that dry place. i have nothing left."
"i am sorry," she whispered, and they sat again in silence. the dusk was deepening. it was windless, very warm. lights in the palace shone through the carved window screens and the still, hanging foliage of the willows.
"something is happening," tenar said. "a great change in the world. maybe nothing we knew will be left to us."
alder looked up into the darkening sky. the towers of the palace stood clear against it, their pale marble and alabaster catching all the light left in the west. his eyes sought the sword blade mounted at the point of the highest tower and he saw it, faint silver. "look," he said. at the sword's point, like a diamond or a drop of water, shone a star. as they watched the star moved free of the sword, rising straight above it.
there was a commotion, in the palace or outside the walls; voices; a horn sounded, a sharp imperative call.
"they've come back," tenar said, and stood up. excitement had come into the air, and alder too stood up. tenar hurried into the palace, from which the harbor could be seen. but before he took tug back inside, alder looked up again at the sword, now only a faint glimmer, and the star riding bright above it.
dolphin came sailing up the harbor in that windless summer night, leaning forward, urgent, the magewind bellying out her sails. nobody in the palace had looked for the king to return so soon, but nothing was out of order or unready when he came. the quay was instantly crowded with courtiers, off-duty soldiers, and townspeople ready to greet him, and song makers and harpers were waiting to hear how he had fought and defeated dragons so they could make ballads about it.
they were disappointed: the king and his party made straight for the palace, and the guards and sailors from the ship said only, "they went up into the country above on-neva sands, and in two days they came back. the wizard sent out a message bird to us, for we were down at the gates of the bay by then, since we were going to meet them in south port. we came back and there they were awaiting us at the river mouth, all unharmed. but we saw the smoke of forests afire over the south falierns."
tenar was in the crowd on the quay, and tehanu went straight to her. they embraced fiercely. but as they walked up the street among the lights and the rejoicing voices, tenar was still thinking, "it has changed. she has changed. she'll never come home."
lebannen walked among his guards. charged with tension and energy, he was regal, warlike, radiant. "erreth-akbe," people called out, seeing him, and "son of morred!" on the steps of the palace he turned and faced them all. he had a strong voice to use when he wanted it, and it rang out now silencing the tumult. "listen, people of havnor! the woman of gont has spoken for us with a chief among the dragons. they have pledged a truce. one of them will come to us. a dragon will come here, to the city of havnor, to the palace of maharion. not to destroy, but to parley. the time has come when men and dragons must meet and talk. so i tell you: when the dragon comes, do not fear it, do not fight it, do not flee it, but welcome it in the sign of peace. greet it as you would greet a great lord come in peace from afar. and have no fear. for we are well protected by the sword of erreth-akbe, by the ring of elfarran, and by the name of morred. and by my own name i promise you, so long as i live i will defend this city and this realm!"
they listened in a breathless hush. a burst of cheers and shouts followed on his words as he turned and strode into the palace. "i thought it best to give them some warning," he said in his usual quiet voice to tehanu, and she nodded. he spoke to her as to a comrade, and she behaved as such. tenar and the courtiers nearby saw this.
he ordered that his full council meet in the morning at the fourth hour, and then they all dispersed, but he kept tenar with him a minute while tehanu went on. "it's she who protects us," he said.
"alone?"
"don't fear for her. she is the dragon's daughter, the dragon's sister. she goes where we can't go. don't fear for her, tenar."
she bowed her head in acceptance. "i thank you for bringing her safe back to me," she said. "for a while."
they were apart from other people, in the corridor that led to the western apartments of the palace. tenar looked up at the king and said, "i've been talking about dragons with the princess."
"the princess," he said blankly.
"she has a name. i can't tell it to you, since she believes you might use it to destroy her soul."
he scowled.
"in hur-at-hur there are dragons. small, she says, and wingless, and they don't speak. but they're sacred. the sacred sign and pledge of death and rebirth. she reminded me that my people don't go where your people do when they die. that dry land alder tells of, it's not where we go. the princess, and i, and the dragons."
lebannen's face changed from wary reserve to intense attention. "ged's questions to tehanu," he said in a low voice. "are these the answers?"
"i know only what the princess told me, or reminded me. i'll speak with tehanu about these things tonight."
he frowned, pondering; then his face cleared. he stooped and kissed tenar's cheek, bidding her good night. he strode off and she watched him go. he melted her heart, he dazzled her, but she was not blinded. "he's still afraid of the princess," she thought.
the throne room was the oldest room in the palace of maharion. it had been the hall of gemal sea-born, prince of ilien, who became king in havnor and of whose lineage came queen heru and her son maharion. the havnorian lay says:
a hundred warriors, a hundred women sat in the great hall of gemal sea-born at the kings table, courtly in talk, handsome and generous gentry of havnor, no warriors braver, no women more beautiful.
around this hall for over a century gemal's heirs had built an ever larger palace, and lastly heru and maharion had raised above it the tower of alabaster, the tower of the queen, the tower of the sword.
these still stood; but though the people of havnor had stoutly called it the new palace all through the long centuries since maharion's death, it was old and half in ruins when lebannen came to the throne. he had rebuilt it almost entirely, and richly. the merchants of the inner isles, in their first joy at having a king and laws again to protect their trading, had set his revenue high and offered him yet more money for all such undertakings; for the first few years of his reign they had not even complained that taxation was destroying their business and would leave their children destitute. so he had been able to make the new palace new again, and splendid. but the throne room, once the beamed ceiling was rebuilt, the stone walls replastered, the narrow, high-set windows reglazed, he left in its old starkness.
through the brief false dynasties and the dark years of tyrants and usurpers and pirate lords, through all the insults of time and ambition, the throne of the kingdom had stood at the end of the long room: a wooden chair, high-backed, on a plain dais. it had once been sheathed in gold. that was long gone; the small golden nails had left rents in the wood where they had been torn out. its silken cushions and hangings had been stolen or destroyed by moth and mouse and mold. nothing showed it to be what it was but the place where it stood and a shallow carving on the back, a heron flying with a twig of rowan in its beak. that was the crest of the house of enlad.
the kings of that house had come from enlad to havnor eight hundred years ago. where morred's high seat is, they said, the kingdom is.
lebannen had it cleaned, the decayed wood repaired and replaced, oiled and burnished back to dark satin, but left it unpainted, ungilt, bare. some of the rich people who came to admire their expensive palace complained about the throne room and the throne. "it looks like a barn," they said, and, "is it morred's high seat or an old farmer's chair?"
to which some said the king had replied, "what is a kingdom without the barns that feed it and the farmers to grow the grain?" others said he had replied, "is my kingdom gauds of gilt and velvet or does it stand by the strength of wood and stone?" still others said he had said nothing except that he liked it the way it was. and it being his royal buttocks that sat on the uncushioned throne, his critics did not get the last word on the matter.
into that stern and high-beamed hall, on a cool morning of late summer sea fog, filed the king's council: ninety-one men and women, a hundred if all had been there. all had been chosen by the king, some to represent the great noble and princely houses of the inner isles, pledged vassals of the crown; some to speak for the interests of other islands and parts of the archipelago; some because the king had found them or hoped to find them useful and trustworthy counselors of state. there were merchants, shippers, and factors of havnor and the other great port cities of the sea of ea and the inmost sea, splendid in their conscious gravity and their dark robes of heavy silk. there were masters from the workers' guilds, flexible and canny bargainers, notable among them a pale-eyed, hard-handed woman, the chief of the miners of osskil. there were roke wizards like onyx, with grey cloaks and wooden staffs. there was also a pelnish wizard, called master seppel, who carried no staff and of whom people mostly steered clear, though he seemed mild enough. there were noblewomen, young and old, from the kingdom's fiefs and principalities, some in silks of lorbanery and pearls from the isles of sand, and two islandwomen, stout, plain, and dignified, one from iffish and one from korp, to speak for the people of the east reach. there were some poets, some learned people from the old colleges of ea and the en-lades, and several captains of soldiery or of the king's ships.
all these councillors the king had chosen. at the end of two or three years he would ask them to serve again or send them home with thanks and in honor, and replace them. all laws and taxations, all judgments brought before the throne, he discussed with them, taking their counsel. they would then vote on his proposal, and only with the consent of the majority was it enacted. there were those who said the council was nothing but the king's pets and puppets, and so indeed it might have been. he mostly got his way if he argued for it. often he expressed no opinion and let the council make the decision. many councillors had found that if they had enough facts to support their opposition and made a good argument, they might sway the others and even persuade the king. so debates within the various divisions and special bodies of the council were often hotly contested, and even in full session the king had several times been opposed, argued with, and voted down. he was a good diplomat, but an indifferent politician.
he found his council served him well, and people of power had come to respect it. common folk did not pay much attention to it. they centered their hopes and attention on the king's person. there were a thousand lays and ballads about the son of morred, the prince who rode the dragon back from death to the shores of day, the hero of sorra, wielder of the sword of serriadh, the rowan tree, the tall ash of enlad, the well-loved king who ruled in the sign of peace. but it was hard going to make songs about councillors debating shipping taxes.
unsung, then, they filed in and took their seats on the cushioned benches facing the uncushioned throne. they stood again as the king came in. with him came the woman of gont, whom most of them had seen before so that her appearance caused no stir, and a slight man in rusty black. "looks like a village sorcerer," a merchant from kamery said to a shipwright from way, who answered, "no doubt," in a resigned, forgiving tone. the king was loved also by many of the councillors, or at least liked; he had after all put power in their hands, and even if they felt no obligation to be grateful him, they respected his judgment.
the elderly lady of ebea hurried in late, and prince sege, who presided over protocol, told the council to be seated. they all sat down. "hear the king," sege said, and they listened.
he told them, and for many it was the first real news of these matters, about the dragons' attacks on west havnor, and how he had set out with the woman of gont, tehanu, to parley with them.
he kept them in suspense while he spoke of the earlier attacks by dragons on the islands of the west, and told them briefly onyx's tale of the girl who turned into a dragon on roke knoll, and reminded them that tehanu was claimed as daughter by tenar of the ring, by the onetime archmage of roke, and by the dragon kalessin, on whose back the king himself had been borne from selidor.
then finally he told them what had happened at the pass in the faliern mountains at dawn three days ago.
he ended by saying, "that dragon carried tehanu's message to orm irian in paln, who then must make the long flight here, three hundred miles or more. but dragons are swifter than any ship even with the magewind. we may look for orm irian at any time."
prince sege asked the first question, knowing the king would welcome it: "what do you hope to gain, my lord, by parley with a dragon?"
the answer was prompt: "more than we can ever gain by trying to fight it. it is a hard thing to say, but it is the truth: against the anger of these great creatures, if indeed they were to come against us in any number, we have no true defense. our wise men tell us there is maybe one place that could stand against them, roke island. and on roke there is maybe one man who could face the wrath of even a single dragon and not be destroyed. therefore we must try to find out the cause of their anger and, by removing it, make peace with them."
"they are animals," said the old lord of felkway. "men cannot reason with animals, make peace with them."
"have we not the sword of erreth-akbe, who slew the great dragon?" cried a young councillor.
he was answered at once by another: "and who slew erreth-akbe?"
debate in the council tended to be tumultuous, though prince sege kept strict rule, not letting anyone interrupt another or speak for more than one turn of the two-minute sandglass. babblers and droners were cut off by a crash of the prince's silver-tipped staff and his call to the next speaker. so they talked and shouted back and forth at a fast pace, and all the things that had to be said and many things that did not need to be said were said, and refuted, and said again. mostly they argued that they should go to war, fight the dragons, defeat them.
"a band of archers on one of the king's warships could bring them down like ducks," cried a hot-blooded merchant from wathort.
"are we to grovel before mindless beasts? are there no heroes left among us?" demanded the imperious lady of o-tokne.
to that, onyx made a sharp reply: "mindless? they speak the language of the making, in the knowledge of which our art and power lies. they are beasts as we are beasts. men are animals that speak."
a ship's captain, an old, far-traveled man, said, "then isn't it you wizards who should be talking with them? since you know their speech, and maybe share their powers? the king spoke of a young untaught girl who turned into a dragon. but mages can take that form at will. couldn't the masters of roke speak with the dragons or fight with them, if need be, evenly matched?"
the wizard from paln stood up. he was a short man with a soft voice. "to take the form is to be the being, captain," he said politely. "a mage can look like a dragon. but true change is a risky art. especially now. a small change in the midst of great changes is like a breath against the wind... but we have here among us one who need use no art, and yet can speak for us to dragons better than any man could do. if she will speak for us."
at that, tehanu stood up from her bench at the foot of the dais. "i will," she said. and sat down again.
that brought a pause to the discussion for a minute, but soon they were all at it again.
the king listened and did not speak. he wanted to know the temper of his people.
the sweet silver trumpets high on the tower of the sword played all their tune four times, telling the sixth hour, noon. the king stood, and prince sege declared a recess until the first hour of the afternoon.
a lunch of fresh cheese and summer fruits and greens was set out in a room in queen heru's tower. there lebannen invited tehanu and tenar, alder, sege, and onyx; and onyx, with the king's permission, brought with him the pelnish wizard seppel. they sat and ate together, talking little and quietly. the windows looked over all the harbor and the north shoreline of the bay fading off into a bluish haze that might be either the remnants of the morning fog or smoke from the forest fires in the west of the island.
alder remained bewildered at being included among the king's intimates and brought into his councils. what had he to do with dragons? he could neither fight with them nor talk with them. the idea of such mighty beings was great and strange to him. at moments the boasts and challenges of the councillors seemed to him like a yapping of dogs. he had seen a young dog once on a beach barking and barking at the ocean, rushing and snapping at the ebb wave, running back from the breaker with its wet tail between its legs.
but he was glad to be with tenar, who put him at ease, and whom he liked for her kindness and courage, and he found now that he was also at ease with tehanu.
her disfigurement made it seem that she had two faces. he could not see them both at one time, only the one or the other. but he had got used to that and it did not disquiet him. his mother's face had been half masked by its wine-red birthmark. tehanu's face reminded him of that.
she seemed less restless and troubled than she had been. she sat quietly, and a couple of times she spoke to alder, sitting next to her, with a shy comradeliness. he felt that, like him, she was there not by choice but because she had forgone choice, driven to follow a way she did not understand. maybe her way and his went together, for a while at least. the idea gave him courage. knowing only that there was something he had to do, something begun that must be finished, he felt that whatever it might be, it would be better done with her than without her. perhaps she was drawn to him out of the same loneliness.
but her conversation was not of such deep matters. "my father gave you a kitten," she said to him as they left the table. "was it one of aunty moss's?"
he nodded, and she asked, "the grey one?"
"yes."
"that was the best cat of the litter."
"she's getting fat, here."
tehanu hesitated and then said timidly, "i think it's a he."
alder found himself smiling. "he's a good companion. a sailor named him tug."
"tug," she said, and looked satisfied.
"tehanu," the king said. he had sat down beside tenar in the deep window seat. "i didn't call on you in council today to speak of the questions lord sparrowhawk asked you. it was not the time. is it the place?"
alder watched her. she considered before answering. she glanced once at her mother, who made no answering sign.
"i'd rather speak to you here," she said in her hoarse voice. "and maybe to the princess of hur-at-hur."
after a brief pause the king said pleasantly, "shall i send for her?"
"no, i can go see her. afterward. i haven't much to say, really. my father asked, who goes to the dry land when they die? and my mother and i talked about it. and we thought, people go there, but do the beasts? do birds fly there? are there trees, does the grass grow? alder, you've seen it."
taken by surprise, he could say only, "there... there's grass, on the hither side of the wall, but it seems dead. beyond that i don't know."
tehanu looked at the king. "you walked across that land, my lord."
"i saw no beast, or bird, or growing thing."
alder spoke again: "lord sparrowhawk said: dust, rock."
"i think no beings go there at death but human beings," tehanu said. "but not all of them." again she looked at her mother, and did not look away.
tenar spoke. "the kargish people are like the animals." her voice was dry and let no feeling be heard. "they die to be reborn."
"that is superstition," onyx said. "forgive me, lady tenar, but you yourself-" he paused.
"i no longer believe," tenar said, "that i am or was, as they told me, arha forever reborn, a single soul reincarnated endlessly and so immortal. i do believe that when i die i will, like any mortal being, rejoin the greater being of the world. like the grass, the trees, the animals. men are only animals that speak, sir, as you said this morning."
"but we can speak the language of the making," the wizard protested. "by learning the words by which segoy made the world, the very speech of life, we teach our souls to conquer death."
"that place where nothing is but dust and shadows, is that your conquest?" her voice was not dry now, and her eyes flashed.
onyx stood indignant but wordless. the king intervened. "lord sparrowhawk asked a second question," he said. "can a dragon cross the wall of stones?" he looked at tehanu.
"it's answered in the first answer," she said, "if dragons are only animals that speak, and animals don't go there. has a mage ever seen a dragon there? or you, my lord?" she looked first at onyx, then at lebannen. onyx pondered only a moment before he said, "no."
the king looked amazed. "how is it i never thought of that?" he said. "no, we saw none. i think there are no dragons there."
"my lord," alder said, louder than he had ever said anything in the palace, "there is a dragon here." he was standing facing the window, and he pointed at it.
they all turned. in the sky above the bay of havnor they saw a dragon flying from the west. its long, slow-beating, vaned wings shone red-gold. a curl of smoke drifted behind it for a moment in the hazy summer air.
"now," the king said, "what room do i make ready for this guest?"
he spoke as if amused, bemused. but the instant he saw the dragon turn and come wheeling in towards the tower of the sword, he ran from the room and down the stairs, startling and outstripping the guards in the halls and at the doors, so that he came out first and alone on the terrace under the white tower.
the terrace was the roof of a banquet hall, a wide expanse of marble with a low balustrade, the sword tower rising directly over it and the queen's tower nearby. the dragon had alighted on the pavement and was furling its wings with a loud metallic rattle as the king came out. where it came down its talons had scratched grooves in the marble.
the long, gold-mailed head swung round. the dragon looked at the king.
the king looked down and did not meet its eyes. but he stood straight and spoke clearly. "orm irian, welcome. i am lebannen."
"agni lebannen," said the great hissing voice, greeting him as orm embar had greeted him long ago, in the farthest west, before he was a king.
behind him, onyx and tehanu had run out onto the terrace along with several guards. one guard had his sword out, and lebannen saw, in a window of the queen's tower, another with drawn bow and notched arrow aimed at the dragon's breast. "put down your weapons!" he shouted in a voice that made the towers ring, and the guard obeyed in such haste that he nearly dropped his sword, but the archer lowered his bow reluctantly, finding it hard to leave his lord defenseless.
"medeu," tehanu whispered, coming up beside lebannen, her gaze unwavering on the dragon. the great creature's head swung round again and the immense amber eye in a socket of shining, wrinkled scales gazed back, unblinking.
the dragon spoke.
onyx, understanding, murmured to the king what it said and what tehanu replied. "kalessin's daughter, my sister," it said. "you do not fly."
"i cannot change, sister," tehanu said.
"shall i?"
"for a while, if you will."
then those on the terrace and in the windows of the towers saw the strangest thing they might ever see however long they lived in a world of sorceries and wonders. they saw the dragon, the huge creature whose scaled belly and thorny tail dragged and stretched half across the breadth of the terrace, and whose red-horned head reared up twice the height of the king-they saw it lower that big head, and tremble so that its wings rattled like cymbals, and not smoke but a mist breathed out of its deep nostrils, clouding its shape, so that it became cloudy like thin fog or worn glass; and then it was gone. the midday sun beat down on the scored, scarred, white pavement. there was no dragon. there was a woman. she stood some ten paces from tehanu and the king. she stood where the heart of the dragon might have been.
she was young, tall, and strongly built, dark, dark-haired, wearing a farm woman's shift and trousers, barefoot. she stood motionless, as if bewildered. she looked down at her body. she lifted up her hand and looked at it. "the little thing!" she said, in the common speech, and she laughed. she looked at tehanu. "it's like putting on the shoes i wore when i was five," she said.
the two women moved towards each other. with a certain stateliness, like that of armed warriors saluting or ships meeting at sea, they embraced. they held each other lightly, but for some moments. they drew apart, and both turned to face the king.
"lady irian," he said, and bowed.
she looked a little nonplussed and made a kind of country curtsey. when she looked up he saw her eyes were the color of amber. he looked instantly away.
"i'll do you no harm in this guise," she said, with a broad, white smile. "your majesty," she added uncomfortably, trying to be polite.
he bowed again. it was he that was nonplussed now. he looked at tehanu, and round at tenar, who had come out onto the terrace with alder. nobody said anything.
irian's eyes went to onyx, standing in his grey cloak just behind the king, and her face lighted up again. "sir," she said, "are you from roke island? do you know the lord patterner?"
onyx bowed or nodded. he too kept his eyes from hers.
"is he well? does he walk among his trees?"
again the wizard bowed.
"and the doorkeeper, and the herbal, and kurremkarmerruk? they befriended me, they stood by me. if you go back there, greet them with my love and honor, if you please."
"i will," the wizard said.
"my mother is here," tehanu said softly to irian. "tenar of atuan."
"tenar of gont," lebannen said, with a certain ring to his voice.
looking with open wonder at tenar, irian said, "it was you that brought the rune ring from the land of the hoary men, along with the archmage?"
"it was," tenar said, staring with equal frankness at irian.
above them on the balcony that encircled the tower of the sword near its summit there was movement: the trumpeters had come out to sound the hour, but at the moment all four of them were gathered on the south side overlooking the terrace, peering down to see the dragon. there were faces in every window of the palace towers, and the thrum of voices down in the streets could be heard like a tide coming in.
"when they sound the first hour," lebannen said, "the council will gather again. the councillors will have seen you come, my lady, or heard of your coming. so if it please you, i think it best that we go straight among them and let them behold you. and if you'll speak to them i promise you they'll listen."
"very well," irian said. for a moment there was a ponderous, reptilian impassivity in her. when she moved, that vanished, and she seemed only a tall young woman who stepped forward quite awkwardly, saying with a smile to tehanu, "i feel as if i'll float up like a spark, there's no weight to me!"
the four trumpets up in the tower sounded to west, north, east, south in turn, one phrase of the lament a king five hundred years ago had made for the death of his friend.
for a moment the king now remembered the face of that man, erreth-akbe, as he stood on the beach of selidor, dark-eyed, sorrowful, mortally wounded, among the bones of the dragon who had killed him. lebannen felt it strange that he should think of such faraway things at such a moment; and yet it was not strange, for the living and the dead, men and dragons, all were drawing together to some event he could not see.
he paused until irian and tehanu came up to him. as he walked on into the palace with them he said, "lady irian, there are many things i would ask you, but what my people fear and what the council will desire to know is whether your people intend to make war on us, and why."
she nodded, a heavy, decisive nod. "i will tell them what i know."
when they came to the curtained doorway behind the dais, the throne room was all in confusion, an uproar of voices, so that the crash of prince sege's staff was barely heard at first. then silence came suddenly on them and they all turned to see the king come in with the dragon.
lebannen did not sit but stood before the throne, and irian stood to his left.
"hear the king," sege said into that dead silence.
the king said, "councillors! this is a day that will long be told and sung. your sons' daughters and your daughters' sons will say, 'i am the grandchild of one who was of the dragon council!' so honor her whose presence honors us. hear orm irian."
some of those who were at the dragon council said afterwards that if they looked straight at her she seemed only a tall woman standing there, but if they looked aside what they saw in the corner of their eye was a vast shimmer of smoky gold that dwarfed king and throne. and many of them, knowing a man must not look into a dragon's eye, did look aside; but they stole glimpses too. the women looked at her, some thinking her plain, some beautiful, some pitying her for having to go barefoot in the palace. and a few councillors, not having rightly understood, wondered who the woman was, and when the dragon would be coming.
all the time she spoke, that complete silence endured. though her voice had the lightness of most women's voices, it filled the high hall easily. she spoke slowly and formally, as if she were translating in her mind from the older speech.
"my name was irian, of the domain of old iria on way. i am orm irian now. kalessin, the eldest, calls me daughter. i am sister to orm embar, whom the king knew, and grandchild of orm, who killed the king's companion erreth-akbe and was killed by him. i am here because my sister tehanu called to me.
"when orm embar died on selidor, destroying the mortal body of the wizard cob, kalessin came from beyond the west and brought the king and the great mage to roke. then returning to the dragons' run, the eldest called the people of the west, whose speech had been taken from them by cob, and who were still bewildered. kalessin said to them, 'you let evil turn you into evil. you have been mad. you are sane again, but so long as the winds blow from the east you can never be what you were, free of both good and evil.'
"kalessin said: 'long ago we chose. we chose freedom. men chose the yoke. we chose fire and the wind. they chose water and the earth. we chose the west, and they the east.'
"and kalessin said: 'but always among us some envy them their wealth, and always among them some envy us our liberty. so it was that evil came into us and will come into us again, until we choose again, and forever, to be free. soon i am going beyond the west to fly on the other wind. i will lead you there, or wait for you, if you will come.'
"then some of the dragons said to kalessin, 'men in their envy of us long ago stole half our realm beyond the west from us and made walls of spells to keep us out of it. so now let us drive them into the farthest east, and take back the islands! men and dragons cannot share the wind.'
"then kalessin said, 'once we were one people. and in sign of that, in every generation of men, one or two are born who are dragons also. and in every generation of our people, longer than the quick lives of men, one of us is born who is also human. of these one is now living in the inner isles. and there is one of them living there now who is a dragon. these two are the messengers, the bringers of choice. there will be no more such born to us or to them. for the balance changes.'
"and kalessin said to them: 'choose. come with me to fly on the far side of the world, on the other wind. or stay and put on the yoke of good and evil. or dwindle into dumb beasts.' and at the last kalessin said: 'the last to make the choice will be tehanu. after her there will be no choosing. there will be no way west. only the forest will be, as it is always, at the center.'"
the people of the king's council were still as stones, listening. irian stood moveless, gazing as if through them, as she spoke.
"after some years had passed, kalessin flew beyond the west. some followed, some did not. when i came to join my people, i followed kalessin. but i go there and come back, so long as the winds will bear me.
"the disposition of my people is jealous and irate. those who stayed here on the winds of the world began to fly in bands or singly to the isles of men, saying again, 'they stole half our realm. now we will take all the west of their realm, and drive them out of it, so they cannot bring their good and evil to us any more. we will not put our necks into their yoke.'
"but they did not try to kill the islanders, because they remembered being mad, when dragon killed dragon. they hate you, but they will not kill you unless you try to kill them.
"so one of these bands has come now to this island, havnor, that we call the cold hill. the dragon who came before them and spoke to tehanu is my brother ammaud. they seek to drive you into the east, but ammaud, like me, enacts the will of kalessin, seeking to free my people from the yoke you wear. if he and i and the children of kalessin can prevent harm to your people and ours, we will do so. but dragons have no king, and obey no one, and will fly where they will. for a while they will do as my brother and i ask in kalessin's name. but not for long. and they fear nothing in the world, except your wizardries of death."
that last word rang heavily in the great hall in the silence that followed irian's voice.
the king spoke, thanking irian. he said, "you honor us with your truth-speaking. by my name, we will speak truth to you. i beg you to tell me, daughter of kalessin who bore me to my kingdom, what it is you say the dragons fear? i thought they feared nothing in the world or out of it."
"we fear your spells of immortality," she said bluntly.
"of immortality?" lebannen hesitated. "i am no wizard. master onyx, speak for me, if the daughter of kalessin will permit."
onyx stood up. irian looked at him with cold, impartial eyes, and nodded.
"lady irian," the wizard said, "we make no spells of immortality. only the wizard cob sought to make himself immortal, perverting our art to do so." he spoke slowly and with evident care, searching his mind as he spoke. "our archmage, with my lord the king, and with the aid of orm embar, destroyed cob and the evil he had done. and the archmage gave all his power up to heal the world, restoring the equilibrium. no other wizard in our lifetime has sought to-" he stopped short.
irian looked straight at him. he looked down.
"the wizard i destroyed," she said, "the summoner of roke, thorion-what was it he sought?"
onyx, stricken, said nothing.
"he came back from death," she said. "but not living, as the archmage and the king did. he was dead, but he came back across the wall by his arts-by your arts-you men of roke! how are we to trust anything you say? you have unmade the balance of the world. can you restore it?"
onyx looked at the king. he was openly distressed. "my lord, i cannot think that this is the place to discuss such matters-before all men-until we know what we are talking about, and what we must do..."
"roke keeps its secrets," irian said with calm scorn.
"but on roke-" tehanu said, not standing; her weak voice died away. prince sege and the king both looked at her and motioned her to speak.
she stood up. at first she kept the left side of her face to the councillors, all sitting motionless on their benches, like stones with eyes.
"on roke is the immanent grove," she said. "isn't that what kalessin meant, sister, speaking of the forest that is at the center?" turning to irian, she showed the people watching her the whole ruin of her face; but she had forgotten them. "maybe we need to go there," she said. "to the center of things."
irian smiled. "i'll go there," she said.
they both looked at the king.
"before i send you to roke, or go with you," he said slowly, "i must know what is at stake. master onyx, i'm sorry that matters so grave and chancy force us to debate our course so openly. but i trust my councillors to support me as i find and hold the course. what the council needs to know is that our islands need not fear attack from the people of the west-that the truce, at least, holds."
"it holds," irian said.
"can you say how long?"
"a half year?" she offered, carelessly, as if she had said, "a day or two."
"we will hold the truce a half year, in hope of peace to follow. am i right to say, lady irian, that to have peace with us, your people want to know that our wizards' meddling with the... laws of life and death will not endanger them?"
"endanger all of us," irian said. "yes."
lebannen considered this and then said, in his most royal, affable, urbane manner, "then i believe i should come to roke with you." he turned to the benches. "councillors, with the truce declared, we must seek the peace. i'll go wherever i must on that quest, ruling as i do in the sign of el-farran's ring. if you see any hindrance to this journey, speak here and now. for it may be that the balance of power within the archipelago, as well as the equilibrium of the whole, is in question. and if i go, i must go now. autumn is near, and it's not a short voyage to roke island."
the stones with eyes sat there for a long minute, all staring, none speaking. then prince sege said, "go, my lord king, go with our hope and trust, and the magewind in your sails." there was a little murmur of assent from the councillors: yes, yes, hear him.
sege asked for further questions or debate; nobody spoke. he closed the session.
leaving the throne room with him, lebannen said, "thank you, sege," and the old prince said, "between you and the dragon, lebannen, what could the poor souls say?"
