Ursula Le Guin - The Rule of Names

The fisherman listened, attentive and expressionless.

‘Now that must have been a powerful wizard and a clever one, first to kill a dragon, and second to get off without leaving a trace. The lords and Mages of the Archipelago couldn’t track him at all, neither where he’d come from nor where he’d made off to. They were about to give up. That was last spring; I’d been off on a three-year voyage up in the North Reach, and got back about that time. And they asked me to help them find the unknown wizard. That was clever of them. Because I’m not only a wizard myself, as I think some of the oafs here have guessed, but I am also a descendant of the Lords of Pendor. That treasure is mine. It’s mine, and knows that it’s mine. Those fools of the League couldn’t find it, because it’s not theirs. It belongs to the House of Pendor, and the great emerald, the star of the hoard, Inalkil the Greenstone, knows its master. Behold!’ Blackbeard raised his oaken staff and cried aloud, ‘Inalkil!’ The tip of the staff began to glow green, a fiery green radiance, a dazzling haze the colour of April grass, and at the same moment the staff tipped in the wizard’s hand, leaning, slanting till it pointed straight at the side of the hill above them.

‘It wasn’t so bright a glow, far away in Havnor,’ Blackbeard murmured, ‘but the staff pointed true. Inalkil answered when I called. The jewel knows its master. And I know the thief, and I shall conquer him. He’s a mighty wizard, who could overcome a dragon. But I am mightier. Do you want to know why, oaf? Because I know his name!’

As Blackbeard’s tone got more arrogant, Birt had looked duller and duller, blanker and blanker; but at this he gave a twitch, shut his mouth, and stared at the Archipelagan. ‘How did you…learn it?’ he asked very slowly.

Blackbeard grinned, and did not answer.

‘Black magic?’

‘How else?’

Birt looked pale, and said nothing.

‘I am the Sealord of Pendor, oaf, and I will have the gold my fathers won, and the jewels my mothers wore, and the Greenstone! For they are mine.—Now, you can tell your village boobies the whole story after I have defeated this wizard and gone. Wait here. Or you can come and watch, if you’re not afraid. You’ll never get the chance again to see a great wizard in all his power.’ Blackbeard turned, and without a backward glance strode off up the hill towards the entrance to the cave.

Very slowly, Birt followed. A good distance from the cave he stopped, sat down under a hawthorn tree, and watched. The Archipel­agan had stopped; a stiff, dark figure alone on the green swell of the hill before the gaping cave-mouth, he stood perfectly still. All at once he swung his staff up over his head, and the emerald radiance shone about him as he shouted, ‘Thief, thief of the Hoard of Pendor, come forth!’

There was a crash, as of dropped crockery, from inside the cave, and a lot of dust came spewing out. Scared, Birt ducked. When he looked again he saw Blackbeard still standing motionless, and at the mouth of the cave, dusty and dishevelled, stood Mr Underhill. He looked small and pitiful, with his toes turned in as usual, and his little bowlegs in black tights, and no staff—he never had had one, Birt suddenly thought. Mr Underhill spoke. ‘Who are you?’ he said in his husky little voice.

‘I am the Sealord of Pendor, thief, come to claim my treasure!’

At that, Mr Underhill slowly turned pink, as he always did when people were rude to him. But he then turned something else. He turned yellow. His hair bristled out, he gave a coughing roar—and was a yellow lion leaping down the hill at Blackbeard, white fangs gleaming.

But Blackbeard no longer stood there. A gigantic tiger, colour of night and lightning, bounded to meet the lion ...

The lion was gone. Below the cave all of a sudden stood a high grove of trees, black in the winter sunshine. The tiger, checking himself in mid-leap just before he entered the shadow of the trees, caught fire in the air, became a tongue of flame lashing out at the dry black branches .. .

But where the trees had stood a sudden cataract leaped from the hillside, an arch of silvery crashing water, thundering down upon the fire. But the fire was gone ...

For just a moment before the fisherman’s staring eyes two hills rose—the green one he knew, and a new one, a bare, brown hillock ready to drink up the rushing waterfall. That passed so quickly it made Birt blink, and after blinking he blinked again, and moaned, for what he saw now was a great deal worse. Where the cataract had been there hovered a dragon. Black wings darkened all the hill, steel claws reached groping, and from the dark, scaly, gaping lips fire and steam shot out.

Beneath the monstrous creature stood Blackbeard, laughing.

‘Take any shape you please, little Mr Underhill!’ he taunted. ‘I can match you. But the game grows tiresome. I want to look upon my treasure, upon Inalkil. Now, big dragon, little wizard, take your true shape. I command you by the power of your truename— Yevaud!’

Birt could not move at all, not even to blink. He cowered staring whether he would or not. He saw the black dragon hang there in the air above Blackbeard. He saw the fire lick like many tongues from the scaly mouth, the steam jet from the red nostrils. He saw Blackbeard’s face grow white, white as chalk, and the beard-fringed lips trembling.

‘Your name is Yevaud!’

‘Yes,’ said a great, husky, hissing voice. ‘My truename is Yevaud, and my true shape is this shape.’

‘But the dragon was killed—they found dragon-bones on Udrath Island—’

‘That was another dragon,’ said the dragon, and then stooped like a hawk, talons outstretched. And Birt shut his eyes.

When he opened them the sky was clear, the hillside empty, except for a reddish-blackish, trampled spot, and a few talon-marks in the grass.

Birt the fisherman got to his feet and ran. He ran across the common, scattering sheep to right and left, and straight down the village street to Palani’s father’s house. Palani was out in the garden weeding the nasturtiums. ‘Come with me!’ Birt gasped. She stared. He grabbed her wrist and dragged her with him. She screeched a little, but did not resist. He ran with her straight to the pier, pushed her into his fishing-sloop the Queenie, untied the painter, took up the oars and set off rowing like a demon. The last that Sattins Island saw of him and Palani was the Queenie ’s sail vanishing in the direction of the nearest island westward.

The villagers thought they would never stop talking about it, how Goody Guld’s nephew Birt had lost his mind and sailed off with the schoolmistress on the very same day that the pedlar Blackbeard disappeared without a trace, leaving all his feathers and beads behind. But they did stop talking about it, three days later. They had other things to talk about, when Mr Underhill finally came out of his cave.

Mr Underhill had decided that since his truename was no longer a secret, he might as well drop his disguise. Walking was a lot harder than flying, and besides, it was a long, long time since he had had a real meal.