Ursula Le Guin - Tehanu The Last Book of Earthsea

The first day of the journey their goal had been journeying. This day they would come to Re Albi. So Tenar’s mind was much on Aunty Moss, wondering what had befallen her and whether she was indeed dying. But as the day and the way went on her mind would not hold to the thought of Moss, or any thought. She was tired. She did not like walking this way again to death. They passed Oak Springs, and went down into the gorge, and started up again. By the last long uphill stretch to the Overfell, her legs were hard to lift, and her mind was stupid and confused, fastening upon one word or image until it became meaningless-the dish-cupboard in Ogion’s house, or the words bone dolphin, which came into her head from seeing Therru’s grass bag of toys, and repeated themselves endlessly.

Ged strode along at his easy traveler’s gait, and Therru trudged right beside him, the same Therru who had worn out on this long climb less than a year ago, and had to be

carried . But that had been after a longer day of walking. And the child had still been recovering from her punishment.

She was getting old, too old to walk so far so fast. It was so hard going uphill. An old woman should stay home by her fireside. The bone dolphin, the bone dolphin. Bone, bound, the binding spell. The bone man and the bone animal. There they went ahead. They were waiting for her. She was slow. She was tired. She toiled on up the last stretch of the hill and came up to them where the road came out on the level of the Overfell. To the left were the roofs of Re Albi slanting down towards the cliff’s edge. To the right the road went up to the manor house. “This way,’ Tenar said.

“No,” the child said, pointing left, to the village.

“This way,” Tenar repeated, and set off on the right-hand way. Ged came with her.

They walked between the walnut orchards and the fields of grass. It was a warm late afternoon of early summer. Birds sang in the orchard trees near and far. He came walking down the road from the great house towards them, the one whose name she could not remember.

“Welcome!” he said, and stopped, smiling at them.

They stopped.

“What great personages have come to honor the house of the Lord of Re Albi,” he said. Tuaho, that was not his name. The bone dolphin, the bone animal, the bone child.

“My Lord Archmage!” He bowed low, and Ged bowed to him.

“And my Lady Tenar of Atuan!” He bowed even lower to her, and she got down on her knees in the road. Her head sank down, till she put her hands in the dirt and crouched until her mouth too was on the dirt of the road.

“Now crawl,” he said, and she began to crawl towards him.

“Stop,” he said, and she stopped.

“Can you talk?” he asked. She said nothing, having no words that would come to her mouth, but Ged replied in his usual quiet voice, “Yes.”

“Where’s the monster?”

“I don’t know.”

“I thought the witch would bring her familiar with her. But she brought you instead. The Lord Archmage Sparrow-hawk. What a splendid substitute! All I can do to witches and monsters is cleanse the world of them. But to you, who used at one time to be a man, I can talk; you are capable of rational speech, at least. And capable of understanding punishment. You thought you were safe, I suppose, with your king on the throne, and my master, our master, destroyed. You thought you’d had your will, and destroyed the promise of eternal life, didn’t you?”

“No,” said Ged’s voice.

She could not see them. She could see only the dirt of the road, and taste it in her mouth. She heard Ged speak. He said, “In dying is life.”

“Quack, quack, quote the Songs, Master of Roke- schoolmaster! What a funny sight to see, the great archmage all got up like a goatherd, and not an ounce of magic in him-not a word of power. Can you say a spell, archmage? Just a little spell-just a tiny charm of illusion? No? Not a word? My master defeated you. Now do you know it? You did not conquer him. His power lives! I might keep you alive here awhile, to see that power-my power. To see the old man I keep from death-and I might use your life for that if I need it-and to see your meddling king make a fool of himself, with his mincing lords and stupid wizards, look-

ing for a woman! A woman to rule us! But the rule is here, the mastery is here, here, in this house. All this year I’ve been gathering others to me, men who know the true power. From Roke, some of them, from right under the noses of the schoolmasters. And from Havnor, from under the nose of that so-called Son of Morred, who wants a woman to rule him, your king who thinks he’s so safe he can go by his true name. Do you know my name, archmage? Do you remember me, four years ago, when you were the great Master of Masters and I was a lowly student at Roke?”

“You were called Aspen,” said the patient voice.

“And my true name?”

“I don’t know your true name."

“What? You don’t know it? Can’t you find it? Don’t mages know all names?”

“I’m not a mage."

“Oh, say it again.”

“I’m not a mage."

“I like to hear you say it. Say it again.”

“I’m not a mage."

“But I am!”

“Yes.”

“Say it!”

“You are a mage."

“Ah! This is better than I hoped! I fished for the eel and caught the whale! Come on, then, come meet my friends. You can walk. She can crawl.”

So they went up the road to the manor house of the Lord of Re Albi and went in, Tenar on hands and knees on the road, and on the marble steps up to the door, and on the marble pavements of the halls and rooms.

Inside the house it was dark. With the darkness came a darkness into Tenar’s mind, so that she understood less and less of what was said. Only some words and voices came to her clearly. What Ged said she understood, and when he spoke she thought of his name, and clung to it in her mind. But he spoke very seldom, and only to answer the one whose name was not Tuaho. That one spoke to her now and then, calling her Bitch. “This is my new pet,” he said to other men, several of them that were there in the darkness where candles made shadows. “See how well trained she is? Roll over, Bitch!” She rolled over, and the men laughed.

“She had a whelp,” he said, “that I planned to finish punishing, since it was left half-burned. But she brought me a bird she’d caught instead, a sparrowhawk. Tomorrow we’ll teach it to fly.”

Other voices said words, but she did not understand words any more.

Something was fastened around her neck and she was made to crawl up more stairs and into a room that smelled of urine and rotting meat and sweet flowers. Voices spoke. A cold hand like a stone struck her head feebly while something laughed, “Eh, eh, eh,” like an old door creaking back and forth. Then she was kicked and made to crawl down halls. She could not crawl fast enough, and was kicked in the breasts and in the mouth. Then there was a door that crashed, and silence, and the dark. She heard somebody crying and thought it was the child, her child. She wanted the child not to cry. At last it stopped.

The child turned left and went some way before she looked back, letting the blossoming hedgerow hide her.

The one called Aspen, whose name was Erisen, and whom she saw as a forked and writhing darkness, had bound her mother and father, with a thong through her tongue and a thong through his heart, and was leading them up toward the place where he hid . The smell of the place was sickening to her, but she followed a little way to see what he did. He led them in and shut the door behind them. It was a stone door. She could not enter there.

She needed to fly, but she could not fly; she was not one of the winged ones.