The Other Wind

by Ursula K. Le Guin

  Tenar climbed up the steps of the Throne of the Nameless Ones in the sacred Place of Atuan. She was very small and the steps were very high, so that she could climb them only laboriously. But when she reached the fourth step she did not pause and turn around, as the priestesses had told her she must do. She went on. She climbed the next step, and the next, and the next, in dust so thick it had obliterated the steps and she must feel for the levels where no foot had ever trodden. She went hastily, because behind the empty throne Ged had left something or lost something, something of great importance to myriads of people, and she had to find it. Only she did not know what it was. “A stone, a stone,” she told herself. But behind the throne, when she crawled there at last, was only dust, owls’ droppings and dust.

  In the alcove of the Old Mage’s house on the Overfell of Gont, Ged dreamed that he was Archmage. He was talking with his friend Thorion as they walked the corridor of runes towards the meeting room of the Masters of the School. “I had no power at all,” he told Thorion earnestly, “for years and years.” The Summoner smiled and said, “That was only a dream, you know.” But Ged was troubled by the long black wings that trailed behind him through the corridor; he shrugged his shoulders, trying to lift the wings, but they dragged on the floor like empty sacks. “Do you have wings?” he asked Thorion, who said, “Oh, yes,” complacently, showing him how his wings were tied tight against his back and legs by many small, thin cords. “I am well yoked,” he said.

  Among the trees of the Immanent Grove on Roke Island, Azver the Patterner slept as he often did in summer in an open glade near the eastern edge of the wood, where he could look up and see the stars through the leaves. There his sleep was light, transparent, his mind moving from thought to dream and back, guided by the movements of the stars and leaves as they changed places in their dance. But tonight there were no stars, and the leaves hung still. He looked up into the lightless sky and saw through the clouds. In the high black sky were stars: small, bright, and still. They did not move. He knew there would be no sunrise.—He sat up then, awake, gazing into the faint, soft light that always hung in the aisles of the trees. His heart beat slow and hard.

  In the Great House the young men, sleeping, turned and cried out, dreaming that they must go fight an army on a plain of dust, but the warriors they must fight were old men, old women, weak, sick people, weeping children.

  The Masters of Roke dreamed that a ship was sailing towards them over the sea, heavy laden, low in the water. One dreamed that the freight of the ship was black rocks. Another dreamed she carried burning fire. Another dreamed that her cargo was dreams.

  The seven masters who slept in the Great House woke, one and then another, in their stone sleeping cells, made a little werelight, and got up. They found the Doorkeeper already afoot and waiting at the door. “The king will come,” he said with a smile, “at daybreak.”

  “Roke knoll,” Tosla said, gazing forward at the far, faint, unmoving wave in the southwest above the twilit waves. Lebannen, standing beside him, said nothing. The cloud cover had dispersed, and the sky arched its pure uncolored dome over the great circle of the waters.

  The ship’s master joined them. “A fair dawn,” he said, whispering in the silence.

  The east brightened slowly to yellow. Lebannen glanced aft. Two of the women were afoot, standing at the rail outside their cabin; tall women, barefoot, silent, gazing east.

  The top of the round green hill caught the sunlight first. It was broad daylight when they sailed in between the headlands of Thwil Bay. Everyone aboard was on deck, watching. But still they spoke little and softly.

  The wind died down within the harbor. It was so still the water reflected the little town that rose above the bay and the walls of the Great House that rose above the town. The ship glided on slower, still slower.

  Lebannen glanced at the ship’s master and at Onyx. The master nodded. The wizard moved his hands up and outward slowly in a spell and murmured a word.

  The ship glided on softly, not slowing until she came alongside the longest of the docks. Then the master spoke, and the great sail was furled while men aboard tossed the lines to men on the dock, shouting, and the silence was broken.

  There were people on the quay to welcome them, townsfolk gathering, and a group of young men from the School, among them a big, deep-chested, dark-skinned man who held a heavy staff that matched his own height. “Welcome to Roke, King of the Western Lands,” he said, coming forward as the gangplank was run out and made fast. “And welcome to all your company.”

  The young men with him and all the townsfolk called out hail and greeting to the king, and Lebannen answered them merrily as he came down the gangplank. He greeted the Master Summoner, and they spoke a while.

  Those watching could see that despite his words of welcome, the Master Summoner’s frowning gaze went to the ship again and again, to the women who stood at the rail, and that his answers did not satisfy the king.

  When Lebannen left him and came back up into the ship, Irian came forward to meet him. “Lord King,” she said, “you may tell the masters that I don’t want to enter their house—this time. I wouldn’t enter it if they asked me.”

  Lebannen’s face was extremely stern. “It is the Master Patterner who asks you to come to him, to the Grove,” he said. At that Irian laughed, radiant. “I knew he would,” she said. “And Tehanu will come with me.”

  “And my mother,” Tehanu whispered. He looked at Tenar; she nodded.

  “So be it,” he said. “And the rest of us will be lodged in the Great House, unless any of us prefer another place.”

  “By your leave, my lord,” Seppel said, “I too will ask the hospitality of the Master Patterner.”

  “Seppel, that’s not necessary,” Onyx said harshly. “Come with me to my house.”

  The Pelnish wizard made a little placating gesture. “No reflection on your friends, my friend,” he said. “But I have longed all my life to walk in the Immanent Grove. And I would be easier there.”

  “It may be that the doors of the Great House are shut to me, as they were before,” Alder said, hesitant; and now Onyx’s sallow face was red with shame.

  The princess’s veiled head had turned from face to face as she eagerly listened, trying to understand what was said. Now she spoke: “Please, my Lord King, I will to be with my friend Tenar? My friend Tehanu? And Irian? And to speak to that Karg?”

  Lebannen looked at them all, glanced back to the Master Summoner standing massively at the foot of the gangplank, and laughed. He spoke from the rail, in his clear, affable voice: “My people have been cooped up in ship’s cabins, Summoner, and it would seem they long for grass underfoot and leaves above their heads. If we all beg the Patterner to take us in, and he agrees, will you forgive our seeming slight to the hospitality of the Great House for a time at least?”

  After a pause the Summoner bowed stiffly.

  A short, stocky man had come up beside him on the dock, and was looking up smiling at Lebannen. He lifted his staff of silvery wood.

  “Sire,” he said, “I took you about the Great House once, a long time ago, and told you lies about everything.”

  “Gamble!” said Lebannen. They met midway on the gangplank and embraced, and talking, went down onto the dock.

  Onyx was the first to follow; he greeted the Summoner gravely and with ceremony, then turned to the man called Gamble. “Are you Windkey now?” he demanded, and when Gamble laughed and said yes, he also embraced him, saying, “A master well made!” Taking Gamble a little aside, he talked with him, eager and frowning.

  Lebannen looked up to the ship to signal the others to come ashore, and as they came down one by one he introduced them to the two Masters of Roke, Brand the Summoner and Gamble the Windkey.

  On most islands of the Archipelago people did not touch palms in greeting as was the way of Enlad, but only bowed the head or held both palms open before the heart, as if in offering. When Irian and the Summoner met, neither bowed
or made any gesture. They stood stiff with their hands at their sides.

  The princess made her deep, straight-backed courtesy.

  Tenar made the conventional gesture, and the Summoner returned it.

  “The Woman of Gont, the daughter of the Archmage, Tehanu,” Lebannen said. Tehanu dipped her head and made the conventional gesture. But the Master Summoner stared at her, gasped, and stepped back as if he had been struck.

  “Mistress Tehanu,” said Gamble quickly, coming forward between her and the Summoner, “we welcome you to Roke—for your father’s sake, and your mother’s, and your own. I hope your voyage was a pleasant one?”

  She looked at him in confusion, and ducked, hiding her face, rather than bowed; but she managed to whisper some kind of answer.

  Lebannen, his face a bronze mask of calm composure, said, “Yes, it was a good voyage, Gamble, though the end of it is still in doubt. Shall we walk up through the town, now, Tenar—Tehanu—Princess—Orm Irian?” He looked at each as he spoke, saying the last name with particular clarity.

  He set off with Tenar, and the others followed. As Seserakh came down the gangplank, she resolutely swept back the red veils from her face.

  Gamble walked with Onyx, Alder with Seppel. Tosla stayed with the ship. The last to leave the quay was Brand the Summoner, walking alone and heavily.

  Tenar had asked ged about the Grove more than once, liking to hear him describe it. “It seems like any grove of trees, when you see it first. Not very large. The fields come right up to it on the north and east, and there are hills to the south and usually to the west… It looks like nothing much. But it draws your eye. And sometimes, from up on Roke Knoll, you can see that it’s a forest, going on and on. You try to make out where it ends, but you can’t. It goes off into the west… And when you walk in it, it seems ordinary again, though the trees are mostly a kind that grows only there. Tall, with brown trunks, something like an oak, something like a chestnut.”

  “What are they called?”

  Ged laughed. “Arhada, in the Old Speech. Trees… The trees of the Grove, in Hardic… Their leaves don’t all turn in autumn, but some at every season, so the foliage is always green with a gold light in it. Even on a dark day those trees seem to hold some sunlight. And in the night, it’s never quite dark under them. There’s a kind of glimmer in the leaves, like moonlight or starlight. Willows grow there, and oak, and fir, other kinds; but as you go deeper in, it’s more and more only the trees of the Grove. And the roots of those go down deeper than the island. Some are huge trees, some slender, but you don’t see many fallen, nor many saplings. They live a long, long time.” His voice had grown soft, dreamy. “You can walk and walk in their shadow, in their light, and never come to the end of them.”

  “But is Roke so large an island?”

  He looked at her peacefully, smiling. “The forests here on Gont Mountain are that forest,” he said. “All forests are.”

  And now she saw the Grove. Following Lebannen, they had come up through the devious streets of Thwil Town, gathering a flock of townsfolk and children come out to see and greet their king. These cheerful followers dropped away little by little as the travelers left the town on a lane between hedges and farms, which petered out into a footpath past the high, round hill, Roke Knoll.

  Ged had told her of the Knoll, too. There, he said, all magic is strong; there all things take their true nature. “There,” he said, “our wizardry and the Old Powers of the Earth meet, and are one.”

  The wind blew in the high, half-dry grass on the hill. A donkey colt galloped off stiff-legged across a stubble field, flicking and flirting its tail. Cattle walked in slow procession along a fence that crossed a little stream. And there were trees ahead, dark trees, shadowy.

  They followed Lebannen through a stile and over a footbridge to a sunlit meadow at the edge of the wood. A small, decrepit house stood near the stream. Irian broke from their group, ran across the grass to the house, and patted the door frame as one would pat and greet a beloved horse or dog after long absence. “Dear house!” she said. And turning to the others, smiling, “I lived here,” she said, “when I was Dragonfly.”

  She looked round, searching the eaves of the wood, and then ran forward again. “Azver!” she called.

  A man had come out of the shadow of the trees into the sunlight. His hair shone in it like silver gilt. He stood still as Irian ran to him. He lifted his hands to her, and she caught them in hers. “I won’t burn you, I won’t burn you this time,” she was saying, laughing and crying, though without tears. “I’m keeping my fires out!”

  They drew each other close and stood face to face, and he said to her, “Daughter of Kalessin, welcome home.”

  “My sister is with me, Azver,” she said.

  He turned his face—a light-skinned, hard, Kargish face, Tenar saw—and looked straight at Tehanu. He came to her. He dropped on both his knees before her. “Hama Gondun!” he said, and again, “Daughter of Kalessin.”

  Tehanu stood motionless for a moment. Slowly she put out her hand to him—her right hand, the burnt hand, the claw. He took it, bowed his head, and kissed it.

  “My honor is that I was your prophet, Woman of Gont,” he said, with a kind of exulting tenderness.

  Then, rising, he turned at last to Lebannen, made his bow, and said, “My king, be welcome.”

  “It’s a joy to me to see you again, Patterner! But I bring a crowd into your solitude.”

  “My solitude is crowded already,” said the Patterner. “A few live souls might keep the balance.”

  His eyes, pale grey-blue-green, glanced round among them. He suddenly smiled, a smile of great warmth, surprising on his hard face. “But here are women of my own people,” he said in Kargish, and came to Tenar and Seserakh, who stood side by side.

  “I am Tenar of Atuan—of Gont,” she said. “With me is the High Princess of the Kargad Lands.”

  He made a proper bow. Seserakh made her stiff courtesy, but her words poured out, tumultuous, in Kargish—”Oh, Lord Priest, I’m glad you’re here! If it weren’t for my friend Tenar I would have gone mad, thinking nobody was left in the world that could talk like a human being except the idiot women they sent with me from Awabath—but I am learning to speak as they do—and I am learning courage, Tenar is my friend and teacher—But last night I broke taboo! I broke taboo! Oh, Lord Priest, please tell me what I must do to atone! I walked on the Dragons’ Way!”

  “But you were aboard the ship, princess,” said Tenar (“I dreamed,” Seserakh said, impatient), “and the Lord Patterner is not a priest but an—a sorcerer—”

  “Princess,” said Azver the Patterner, “I think we’re all walking on the Dragons’ Way. And all taboos may well be shaken or broken. Not only in dream. We’ll speak of this later, under the trees. Have no fear. But let me greet my friends, if you will?”

  Seserakh nodded regally, and he turned away to greet Alder and Onyx.

  The princess watched him. “He is a warrior,” she said to Tenar in Kargish, with satisfaction. “Not a priest. Priests have no friends.”

  They all moved on slowly and came under the shadow of the trees.

  Tenar looked up into the arcades and groves of branches, the layers and galleries of leaves. She saw oaks and a big hemmen tree, but most were the trees of the Grove. Their oval leaves moved easily in the air, like the leaves of aspen and poplar; some had yellowed, and there was a dapple of gold and brown on the ground at their roots, but the foliage in the morning light was the green of summer, full of shadows and deep light.

  The Patterner led them along a path among the trees. As they went, Tenar thought again about Ged, remembering his voice as he told her about this place. She felt nearer him than she had been since she and Tehanu left him in the dooryard of their house in the early summer and walked down to Gont Port to take the king’s ship to Havnor. She knew Ged had lived here with the Patterner of long ago, and had walked here with Azver. She knew the Grove was to him the central and s
acred place, the heart of peace. She felt that she might look up and see him at the end of one of the long, sun-dappled glades. And that notion eased her heart.

  For her dream of the night before had troubled her, and when Seserakh burst out with her dream of breaking taboo, Tenar had been deeply startled. She too had broken taboo in her dream, transgressed. She had climbed the last three stairs of the Empty Throne, the forbidden steps. The Place of the Tombs on Atuan was long ago and far away, and maybe the earthquake had left no throne or steps there at all in the temple where her name had been taken from her: but the Old Powers of the Earth were there, and they were here. They were not changed or moved. They were the earthquake, and the earth. Their justice was not man’s justice. As she had walked by the round hill, Roke Knoll, she knew she walked where all the powers met.

  She had defied them, long ago, breaking free of the Tombs, stealing the treasure, fleeing here to the West. But they were here. Under her feet. In the roots of these trees, in the roots of the hill.

  So, here in the center where earth’s powers met, the human powers had also met together: a king, a princess, the masters of wizardry. And the dragons.

  And a priestess-thief turned farmwife, and a village sorcerer with a broken heart…

  She looked round at Alder. He was walking beside Tehanu. They were talking quietly. Tehanu talked more readily with him than with anyone, even Irian, and looked at ease when she was with him. It cheered Tenar to see them, and she walked on under the great trees, letting her awareness slip into a half trance of green light and moving leaves. She was sorry when, after only a short way, the Patterner halted. She felt she could walk forever in the Grove.

  They gathered in a grassy glade, open to the sky in the center where the branches did not reach to meet. A tributary of the Thwilburn ran across one side of it, willow and Alder growing along its course. Not far from the stream was a low, lumpy house built of stone and sod, with a taller lean-to against its wall made of withies and mats of woven reed. “My winter palace, my summer palace,” Azver said.