Tales from Earthsea (earthsea)

by Ursula K LeGuin

  Morred and Elfarran married, and the poem describes their reign as a brief golden age, the foundation and touchstone of ethic and governance thereafter.

  Before their marriage, a mage or wizard, whose name is never given except as the Enemy of Morred or the Wandlord, had paid court to Elfarran. Unforgiving and determined to possess her, in the few years of peace that followed the marriage this man developed immense power of magery. After five years he came forth and announced, in the words of the poem,

  If Elfarran be not my own, I will unsay Segoy's word,

  I will unmake the islands, the white waves will whelm all.

  He had power to raise huge waves on the sea, and to stop the tide or bring it early; and his voice could enchant whole populations, bringing all who heard him under his control. So he turned Morred's people against him. Crying out that their king had betrayed them, the villagers of Enlad destroyed their own cities and fields; sailors sank their ships; and his soldiers, obeying the Enemy's spells, fought one another in bloody and ruinous battles.

  While Morred sought to free his people from these spells and to confront his enemy, Elfarran returned with their year-old child to her native island, Solea, where her own powers would he strongest. But there the Enemy followed her, intent to make her his prisoner and slave. She took refuge at the Springs of Ensa, where, with her knowledge of the Old Powers of the place, she could withstand the Enemy and force him off the island. "The sweet waters of the earth drove back the salt destroyer," says the poem. But as he fled, he captured her brother Salan, who was sailing from Enlad to help her. Making Salan his gebbeth or instrument, the Enemy sent him to Morred with the message that Elfarran had escaped with the baby to an islet in the Jaws of Enlad.

  Trusting the messenger, Morred entered the trap. He barely escaped with his life. The Enemy pursued him from the east to the west of Enlad in a trail of ruin. On the Plains of Enlad, meeting the companions who had stayed loyal to him, most of them sailors who had brought their ships to Enlad to aid him, Morred turned and gave battle. The Enemy would not confront him directly, but sent Morred's own spell-bound warriors to fight him, and worse, sent sorceries that shriveled up the bodies of his men till they "living, seemed the black thirst-dead of the desert." To spare his people, Morred withdrew.

  As he left the battlefield it began to rain, and he saw his enemy's true name written in raindrops in the dust.

  Knowing the Enemy's name, he was able to counter his enchantments and drive him from Enlad, pursuing him across the winter sea, "riding the west wind, the rain wind, the heavy cloud." Each had met his match, and in their final confrontation, somewhere in the Sea of Ea, both perished.

  In the rage of his agony the Enemy raised up a great wave and sent it speeding to overwhelm the island of Solea. Elfarran knew this, as she knew the moment of Morred's death. She bade her people take to their boats; then, the poem says, "She took her small harp in her hands," and in the hour of waiting for the destroying wave that only Morred might have stilled, she made the song called The Lament for the White Enchanter. The island was drowned beneath the sea, and Elfarran with it. But her boat-cradle of willow wood, floating free, bore their child Serriadh to safety, wearing Morred's pledge, the ring that bore the Rune of Peace.

  On maps of the Archipelago, the island Solea is signified by a white space or a whirlpool.

  After Morred, seven more kings and queens ruled from Enlad, and the realm increased steadily in size and prosperity.

  THE KINGS OF HAVNOR

  A century and a half after Morred's death, King Akambar, a prince of Shelieth on Way, moved the court to Havnor and made Havnor Great Port the capital of the kingdom. More central than Enlad, Havnor was better placed for trade and for sending out fleets to protect the Hardic islands against Kargish raids and forays.

  The history of the Fourteen Kings of Havnor (actually six kings and eight queens, ~150–400) is told in the Havnorian Lay. Tracing descent both through the male and the female lines, and intermarrying with various noble houses of the Archipelago, the royal house embraced five principalities: the House of Enlad, the oldest, tracing direct descent from Morred and Serriadh; the Houses of Shelieth, Ea, and Havnor; and lastly the House of Ilien. Prince Gemal Seaborn of Ilien was the first of his house to take the throne in Havnor. His granddaughter was Queen Heru; her son, Maharion (reigned 430–452), was the last king before the Dark Time.

  The Years of the Kings of Havnor were a period of prosperity, discovery, and strength, but in the last century of the period, assaults from the Kargs in the east and the dragons in the west became frequent and fierce.

  Kings, lords, and Islemen charged with defending the islands of the Archipelago came to rely increasingly on wizards to fend off dragons and Kargish fleets. In the Havnorian Lay and The Deed of the Dragonlords, as the tale goes on, the names and exploits of these wizards begin to eclipse those of the kings.

  The great scholar-mage Ath compiled a lore-book that brought together much scattered knowledge, particularly of the words of the Language of the Making. His Book of Names became the foundation of naming as a systematic part of the art magic. Ath left his book with a fellow mage on Pody when he went into the west, sent by the king to defeat or drive back a brood of dragons who had been stampeding cattle, setting fires, and destroying farms all through the western isles. Somewhere west of Ensmer, Ath confronted the great dragon Orm. Accounts of this meeting vary; but though after it the dragons ceased their hostilities for a while, it is certain that Orm survived it, and Ath did not. His book, lost for centuries, is now in the Isolate Tower on Roke.

  The food of dragons is said to be light, or fire; they kill in rage, to defend their young, or for sport, but never eat their kill. Since time immemorial, until the reign of Heru, they had used only the outmost isles of the West Reach—which may have been the easternmost borders of their own realm—for meeting and breeding, and had seldom even been seen by most of the islanders. Naturally irritable and arrogant, the dragons may have felt threatened by the increasing population and prosperity of the Inner Lands, which brought constant boat traffic even out in the West Reach. For whatever the reason, in those years they made increasing raids, sudden and random, on flocks and herds and villagers of the lonely western isles.

  A tale of the Vedurnan or Division, known in Hur-at-Hur, says:

  Men chose the yoke,

  dragons the wing.

  Men to own,

  dragons no thing.

  That is, human beings chose to have possessions and dragons chose not to. But, as there are ascetics among humans, some dragons are greedy for shining things, gold, jewels; one was Yevaud, who sometimes came among people in human form, and who made the rich Isle of Pendor into a dragon nursery, until driven back into the west by Ged. But the marauding dragons of the Lay and the songs seem to have been moved not so much by greed as by anger, a sense of having been cheated, betrayed.

  The deeds and lays that tell of raids by dragons and counterforays by wizards portray the dragons as pitiless as any wild animal, terrifying, unpredictable, yet intelligent, sometimes wiser than the wizards. Though they speak the True Speech, they are endlessly devious. Some of them clearly enjoy battles of wits with wizards, "splitting arguments with a forked tongue." Like human beings, all but the greatest of them conceal their true names. In the lay Hasa's Voyage, the dragons appear as formidable but feeling beings, whose anger at the invading human fleet is justified by their love of their own desolate domain. They address the hero:

  Sail home to the houses of the sunrise, Hasa.

  Leave to our wings the long winds of the west,

  leave us the air-sea, the unknown, the utmost…

  MAHARION AND ERRETH-AKBE

  Queen Heru, called the Eagle, inherited the throne from her father, Denggemal of the House of Ilien. Her consort Aiman was of the House of Morred. When she had ruled thirty years she gave the crown to their son Maharion.

  Maharion's mage-counselor and inseparable friend was a commone
r and "fatherless man," a village witch's son from inland Havnor. The most beloved hero of the Archipelago, his story is told in The Deed of Erreth-Akbe, which bards sing at the Long Dance of midsummer.

  Erreth-Akbe's gifts in magic became apparent when he was still a boy. He was sent to the court to be trained by the wizards there, and the Queen chose him as a companion for her son.

  Maharion and Erreth-Akbe became "hearts brothers." They spent ten years together fighting the Kargs, whose occasional forays from the East had in recent times become a slave-taking, colonising invasion. Venway, Torheven and the Torikles, Spevy, Perregal, and parts of Gont were under Kargish dominion for a generation or longer. At Shelieth on Way, Erreth-Akbe worked a great magic against the Kargish forces, who had landed in "a thousand ships" on Waymarsh and were swarming across the mainland. Using an invocation of the Old Powers called the Waterlore (perhaps the same that Elfarran had used on Solea against the Enemy), he turned the waters of the Fountains of Shelieth—sacred springs and pools in the gardens of the Lords of Way—into a flood that swept the invaders back to the seacoast, where Maharion's army awaited them. No ship of the fleet returned to Karego-At.

  Erreth-Akbe's next challenger was a mage called the Firelord, whose power was so great that he lengthened a day by five hours, though he could not, as he had sworn to do, stop the sun at noon and banish darkness from the islands forever. The Firelord took dragon form to fight Erreth-Akbe, but was defeated at last, at the cost of the forests and cities of Ilien, which he set afire as he fought.

  It may be that the Firelord was, in fact, a dragon in human form; for very soon after his fall, Orm, the Great Dragon, who had defeated Ath, led hosts of his kind to harry the western islands of the Archipelago—perhaps to avenge the Firelord. These fiery flights caused great terror, and hundreds of boats carried people fleeing from Paln and Semel to the Inner Islands; but the dragons were not doing as much damage as the Kargs, and Maharion judged the urgent danger lay in the east. While he himself went west to fight dragons, he sent Erreth-Akbe east to try to establish peace with the King of the Kargad Lands.

  Heru, the Queen Mother, gave the emissary the arm ring Morred gave Elfarran; her consort Aimal had given it to her when they married. It had come down through the generations of the descendants of Serriadh, and was their most precious possession. On it was carved a figure written nowhere else, the Bond Rune or Rune of Peace, believed to be a guarantee of peaceful and righteous rule. "Let the Kargish king wear Morred's ring," the Queen Mother said. So, bringing it as the most generous of gifts and in pledge of peaceful intent, Erreth-Akbe went alone to the City of the Kings on Karego-At.

  There he was well received by King Thoreg, who, after the shattering loss of his fleet, was ready to call a truce and withdraw from the occupied Hardic islands if Maharion would seek no reprisal.

  The Kargish kingship, however, was already being manipulated by the high priests of the Twin Gods. Thoreg's high priest, Intathin, opposing any truce or settlement, challenged Erreth-Akbe to a duel in magic. Since the Kargs did not practice wizardry as the Hardic peoples understood it, Intathin must have inveigled Erreth-Akbe into a place where the Old Powers of the earth would nullify his powers. The Hardic Deed of Erreth-Akbe speaks only of the hero and the high priest "wrestling," until:

  the weakness of the old darkness came into Erreth-Akbe's limbs,

  the silence of the mother darkness into his mind.

  Long he lay, forgetful of bright fame and brotherhood,

  long, and on his breast lay the rune-ring broken.

  The daughter of "the wise king Thoreg" rescued Erreth-Akbe from this trance or imprisoning spell and restored him his strength. He gave her the half of the Ring of Peace that remained to him. (From her it passed through her descendants for over five hundred years to the last heirs of Thoreg, a brother and sister exiled on a deserted island of the East Reach; and the sister gave it to Ged.) Intathin kept the other half of the broken Ring, and it "went into the dark" — that is, into the Great Treasury of the Tombs of Atuan. (There Ged found it, and rejoining the two halves and with them the lost Rune of Peace, he and Tenar brought the Ring home to Havnor.)

  The Kargish version of the story, told as a sacred recital by the priesthood, says that Intathin defeated Erreth-Akbe, who "lost his staff and amulet and power" and crept back to Havnor a broken man. But wizards carried no staff in those years, and Erreth-Akbe certainly was an unbroken man and a powerful mage when he faced the dragon Orm.

  King Maharion sought peace and never found it. While Erreth-Akbe was in Karego-At (which may have been a period of years), the depredations of the dragons increased. The Inward Isles were troubled by refugees fleeing the western lands and by interruptions to shipping and trade, since the dragons had taken to setting fire to boats that went west of Hosk, and harried ships even in the Inmost Sea. All the wizards and armed men Maharion could command went out to fight the dragons, and he went with them himself four times; but swords and arrows were little use against armored, fire-spouting, flying enemies. Paln was "a plain of charcoal," and villages and towns in the west of Havnor had been burnt to the ground. The king's wizards had spell-caught and killed several dragons over the Pelnish Sea, which probably increased the dragons' ire. Just as Erreth-Akbe returned, the Great Dragon Orm flew to the City of Havnor and threatened the towers of the king's palace with fire.

  Erreth-Akbe, sailing into the bay "with sails worn transparent by the eastern winds," could not pause to "embrace his heart's brother or greet his home." Taking dragon form himself, he flew to battle with Orm over Mount Onn. "Flame and fire in the midnight air" could be seen from the palace in Havnor. They flew north, Erreth-Akbe in pursuit. Over the sea near Taon, Orm turned again and this time wounded the mage so that he had to come down to earth and take his own form. He came, with the dragon now following him, to the Old Island, Ea, the first land Segoy raised from the sea. On that sacred and powerful soil, he and Orm met. Ceasing their battle, they spoke as equals, agreeing to end the enmity of their races.

  Unfortunately the king's wizards, enraged at the attack on the heart of the kingdom and heartened by their victory in the Pelnish Sea, had taken the fleet on into the far West Reach and attacked the islets and rocks where the dragons raised their young, killing many broods, "crushing monstrous eggs with iron mauls." Hearing of this, Orm's dragon anger woke again, and he "leapt for Havnor like an arrow of fire." (Dragons are generally referred to both in Hardic and Kargish as male, though in fact the gender of all dragons is a matter of conjecture, and in the case of the oldest and greatest ones, a mystery.)

  Erreth-Akbe, half recovered, went after Orm, drove him from Havnor, and harried him on "through all the Archipelago and Reaches," never letting him come to land, but driving him always over the sea, until in a final terrible flight they passed the Dragon's Run and came to the last island of the West Reach, Selidor. There, on the outer beach, both exhausted, they faced each other and fought, "talon and fire and word and sword," until:

  their blood ran mingled, making the sand red.

  Their breath ceased. Their bodies by the loud sea

  lay entangled. They entered death's land together.

  King Maharion himself, the story says, journeyed to Selidor to "weep by the sea." He retrieved Erreth-Akbe's sword and set it atop the highest tower of his palace.

  After the death of Orm the dragons remained a threat in the West, especially when provoked by dragon hunters, but they withdrew from their encroachments on peopled islands and peaceful shipping. Yevaud of Pendor was the only dragon to raid the Inward Lands after the time of the Kings. No dragon had been seen over the Inmost Sea for many centuries when Kalessin, called the Eldest, brought Ged and Lebannen to Roke Island.

  Maharion died a few years after Erreth-Akbe, having seen no peace established, and much unrest and dissent within his kingdom. It was widely said that since the Ring of Peace was lost there could be no true king of Earthsea. Mortally wounded in battle against the rebel lord Gehi
s of the Havens, Maharion spoke a prophecy: "He shall inherit my throne who has crossed the dark land living and come to the far shores of the day."

  THE DARK TIME, THE HAND, AND ROKE SCHOOL

  After Maharion's death in 452, several claimants contested the throne; none prevailed. Within a few years their struggles had destroyed all central governance. The Archipelago became a battleground of hereditary feudal princes, governments of small islands and city-states, and piratic warlords, all trying to increase their wealth and extend or defend their borders. Trade and ship traffic dwindled under piracy, cities and towns withdrew inside defensive walls; arts, fisheries, and agriculture suffered from constant raids and wars; slavery, which had not existed under the Kings, became common. Magic was the primary weapon in forays and battles. Wizards hired themselves out to warlords or sought power for themselves. Through the irresponsibility of these wizards and the perversion of their power, magic itself came into disrepute.

  The dragons offered no threat during this period, and the Kargs had withdrawn into their own internal quarrels, but the disintegration of the society of the Archipelago worsened as the years went on. Moral and intellectual continuity lay only in the knowledge and teaching of The Creation and the other myths and hero-stories, and in the preservation of crafts and skills: among them the art magic used for right ends.

  The Hand, a loose-knit league or community concerned principally with the understanding and the ethical use and teaching of magic, was established by men and women on Roke Island about a hundred and fifty years after Maharion's death. Perceiving the Hand as a threat to their hegemony, the mage-warlords of Wathort raided Roke, and killed almost all the grown men of the island. But the Hand had already stretched out to other islands all around the Inmost Sea. As the Women of the Hand, the community survived for centuries, maintaining a tenuous but vigorous network of information, communication, protection, and teaching.