“Go where?’ ‘
“Up on the mountain.”
“Wandering-like Ogion?’ ‘ She looked at him. She remembered walking with him on the roads of Atuan, deriding him: “Do wizards often beg?” And he had answered, “Yes, but they try to give something in exchange. “ ‘
She asked cautiously, “Could you get on for a while as a weatherworker, or a finder?” She filled his glass full.
He shook his head. He drank wine, and looked away. “No,” he said. “None of that. Nothing of that.”
She did not believe him. She wanted to rebel, to deny, to say to him, How can it be, how can you say that-as if you’d forgotten all you know, all you learned from Ogion, and at Roke, and in your traveling! You can’t have forgotten the words, the names, the acts of your art. You learned, you earned your power!-She kept herself from saying that, but she murmured, “I don’t understand. How can it all . . . ‘ ‘
“A cup of water,” he said, tipping his glass a little as if to pour it out. And after a while, ‘ ‘What I don’t understand is why he brought me back. The kindness of the young is cruelty.... So I’m here, I have to get on with it, till I can go back.”
She did not know clearly what he meant, but she heard a note of blame or complaint that, in him, shocked and angered her. She spoke stiffly: “It was Kalessin that brought you here.”
It was dark in the house with the door closed and only the small western window letting in the late-afternoon light. She could not make out his expression; but presently he raised his glass to her with a shadowy smile, and drank.
“This wine,” he said. “Some great merchant or pirate must have brought it to Ogion. I never drank its equal.
Even in Havnor.” He turned the squat glass in his hands, looking down at it. “I’ll call myself something,’ ‘ he said, “and go across the mountain, to Armouth and the East Forest country, where I came from. They’ll be making hay. There’s always work at haying and harvest. “
She did not know how to answer.” Fragile and jll~looking, he would be given such work only out of charity or brutality; and if he got it he would not be able to do it.”
“The roads aren’t like they used to be,” she said.” “These last years, there’s thieves and gangs everywhere. Foreign riffraff, as my friend Townsend says. But it’s not safe any more to go alone.”
Looking at him in the dusky light to see how he took this, she wondered sharply for a moment what it must be like never to have feared a human being-what it would be like to have to learn to be afraid .
“Ogion still went-’” he began, and then set his mouth; he had recalled that Ogion had been a mage.
“Down in the south part of the island,’ ‘ Tenar said, “there’s a lot of herding. Sheep, goats, cattle. They drive them up into the hills before the Long Dance, and pasture them there until the rains. They’re always needing herders. “ She drank a mouthful of the wine. It was like the dragon’s name in her mouth.” “But why can”t you just stay here?’ -
“Not in Ogion’s house.” The first place they’ll come. “Well, what if they do come? What will they want of you?”
“To be what I was.
The desolation of his voice chilled her.
She was silent, trying to remember what it was like to have been powerful, to be the Eaten One, the One Priestess of the Tombs of Atuan, and then to lose that, throw it away, become only Tenar, only herself.” She thought about how it was to have been a woman in the prime of life, with children and a man, and then to lose all that, becoming old and a widow, powerless.” But even so she did not feel she understood his shame, his agony of humiliation. Perhaps only a man could feel so. A woman got used to shame.
Or maybe Aunty Moss was right, and when the meat was out the shell was empty.”
Witch-thoughts, she thought. And to turn his mind and her own, and because the soft, fiery wine made her wits and tongue quick, she said, “Do you know, I’ve thought-about Ogion teaching me, and I wouldn’t go on, but went and found myself my farmer and married him-I thought, when I did that, I thought on my wedding day, Ged will be angry when he hears of this!” She laughed as she spoke.”
“I was, “ he said.” She waited. He said, “I was disappointed.” “Angry,” she said.” “Angry,” he said. He poured her glass full.
“I had the power to know power, then,’ ‘ he said. “And you-you shone, in that terrible place, the Labyrinth, that darkness
“Well, then, tell me: what should I have done with my power, and the knowledge Ogion tried to teach me?’ ‘
“Use it.”
“How?”
“As the Art Magic is used.””
“By whom?”
“Wizards,” he said, a little painfully.”
“Magic means the skills, the arts of wizards, of mages?”” “What else would it mean?”
“Is that all it could ever mean? “ ‘
He pondered, glancing up at her once or twice. “When Ogion taught me,” she said, “here-at the hearth there-the words of the Old Speech, they were as easy and as hard in my mouth as in his.” That was like learning the language I spoke before I was born. But the rest-the lore, the runes of power, the spells, the rules, the raising of the forces-that was all dead to me. Somebody else’s language. I used to think, I could be dressed up as a warrior, with a lance and a sword and a plume and all, but it wouldn t fit, would it? What would I do with the sword? Would it make me a hero? I’d be myself in clothes that didn’t fit, is all, hardly able to walk.”
She sipped her wine.
“So I took it all off,” she said, “and put on my own clothes.”
“What did Ogion say when you left him?’ ‘
“What did Ogion usually say?”
That roused the shadowy smile again.” He said nothing.
She nodded.
After a while, she went on more softly, “He took me because you brought me to him. He wanted no prentice after you, and he never would have taken a girl but from you, at your asking. But he loved me. He did me honor. And I loved and honored him.” But he couldn’t give me what I wanted, and I couldn’t take what he had to give me. He knew that.” But, Ged, it was a different matter when he saw Therru.” The day before he died. You say, and Moss says, that power knows power.” I don’t know what he saw in her, but he said, ‘Teach her!’ And he said . . .
Ged waited.”
“He said, ‘They will fear her.”’ And he said, ‘Teach her all! Not Roke.”’ I don’t know what he meant.” How can I know? If I had stayed here with him I might know, I might be able to teach her. But I thought, Ged will come, he’ll know. He’ll know what to teach her, what she needs to know, my wronged one.””
“I do not know,” he said, speaking very low. “I saw- In the child I see only-the wrong done. The evil.”
He drank off his wine.”
“I have nothing to give her,” he said.
There was a little scraping knock at the door.” He started up instantly with that same helpless turn of the body, looking for a place to hide.
Tenar went to the door, opened it a crack, and smelled Moss before she saw her.”
“Men in the village,’ ‘ the old woman whispered dramatically. “All kind of fine folk come up from the Port, from the great ship that’s in from Havnor City, they say.” Come after the Archmage, they say.
“He doesn’t want to see them,’ ‘ Tenar said weakly. She had no idea what to do.
“I dare say not,” said the witch.” And after an expectant pause, “Where is he, then?”