west of roke in a crowd between the two great lands hosk and ensmer lie the ninety isles. the nearest to roke is serd, and the farthest is seppish, which lies almost in the pelnish sea; and whether the sum of them is ninety is a question never settled, for if you count only isles with freshwater springs you might have seventy, while if you count every rock you might have a hundred and still not be done; and then the tide would change. narrow run the channels between the islets, and there the mild tides of the inmost sea, chafed and baffled, run high and fall low, so that where at high tide there might be three islands in one place, at low there might be one. yet for all that danger of the tide, every child who can walk can paddle, and has his little rowboat; housewives row across the channel to take a cup of rushwash tea with the neighbor; peddlers call their wares in rhythm with the stroke of their oars. all roads there are salt water, blocked only by nets strung from house to house across the straits to catch the small fish called turbies, the oil of which is the wealth of the ninety isles. there are few bridges, and no great towns. every islet is thick with farms and fishermen's houses, and these are gathered into townships each of ten or twenty islets. one such was low torning, the westernmost, looking not on the inmost sea but outward to empty ocean, that lonely corner of the archipelago where only pendor lies, the dragon-spoiled isle, and beyond it the waters of the west reach, desolate.

a house was ready there for the township's new wizard. it stood on a hill among green fields of barley, sheltered from the west wind by a grove of pendick-trees that now were red with flowers. from the door one looked out on other thatched roofs and groves and gardens, and other islands with their roofs and fields and hills, and amongst them all the many bright winding channels of the sea. it was a poor house, windowless, with earthen floor, yet a better house than the one ged was born in. the isle-men of low torning, standing in awe of the wizard from roke, asked pardon for its humbleness. "we have no stone to build with," said one, "we are none of us rich, though none starve," said another, and a third, "it will be dry at least, for i saw to the thatching myself, sir." to ged it was as good as any palace. he thanked the leaders of the township frankly, so that the eighteen of them went home, each in his own rowboat to his home isle, to tell the fishermen and housewives that the new wizard was a strange young grim fellow who spoke little, but he spoke fairly, and without pride.

there was little cause, perhaps, for pride in this first magistry of ged's. wizards trained on roke went commonly to cities or castles, to serve high lords who held them in high honor. these fisherman of low torning in the usual way of things would have had among them no more than a witch or a plain sorcerer, to charm the fishing-nets and sing over new boats and cure beasts and men of their ailments. but in late years the old dragon of pendor had spawned: nine dragons, it was said, now laired in the ruined towers of the sealords of pendor, dragging their scaled bellies up and down the marble stairs and through the broken doorways there. wanting food on that dead isle, they would be flying forth some year when they were grown and hunger came upon them. already a flight of four had been seen over the southwest shores of hosk, not alighting but spying out the sheepfolds, barns, and villages. the hunger of a dragon is slow to wake, but hard to sate. so the isle-men of low torning had sent to roke begging for a wizard to protect their folk from what boded over the western horizon, and the archmage had judged their fear well founded.

"there is no comfort in this place," the archmage had said to ged on, the day he made him wizard, "no fame, no wealth, mybe no risk. will you go?"

"i will go," ged had replied, not from obedience only. since the night on roke knoll his desire had turned as much against fame and display as once it had been set on them. always now he doubted his strength and dreaded the trial of his power. yet also the talk of dragons drew him with a great curiosity. in gont there have been no dragons for many hundred years; and no dragon would ever fly within scent or sight or spell of roke, so that there also they are a matter of tales and songs only, things sung of but not seen. ged had learned all he could of dragons at the school, but it is one thing to read about dragons and another to meet them. the chance lay bright before him, and heartily he answered, "i will go "

the archmage gensher had nodded his head, but his look was somber. "tell me," he said at last, "do you fear to leave roke? or are you eager to be gone?"

"both, my lord."

again gensher nodded. "i do not know if i do right to send you from your safety here," he said very low. "i cannot see your way. it is all in darkness. and there is a power in the north, something that would destroy you, but what it is and where, whether in your past or on your forward way, i cannot tell: it is all shadowed. when the men from low torning came here, i thought at once of you, for it seemed a safe place and out of the way, where you might have time to gather your strength. but i do not know if any place is safe for you, or where your way goes. i do not want to send you out into the dark..."

it seemed a bright enough place to ged at first, the house under the flowering trees. there he lived, and watched the western sky often, and kept his wizard's ear tuned for the sound of scaly wings. but no dragon came. ged fished from his jetty, and tended his garden-patch. he spent whole days pondering a page or a line or a word in the lore-books he had brought from roke, sitting out in the summer air under the pendick-trees, while the otak slept beside him or went hunting mice in the forests of grass and daisies. and he served the people of low torning as healall and weatherworker whenever they asked him. it did not enter his head that a wizard might be ashamed to perform such simple crafts, for he had been a witchchild among poorer folk than these. they, however, asked little of him, holding him in awe, partly because he was a wizard from the isle of the wise, and partly on account of his silence and his scarred face. there was that about him, young as he was, that made men uneasy with him.

yet he found a friend, a boatmaker who dwelt on the next islet eastward. his name was pechvarry. they had met first on his jetty, where ged stopped to watch him stepping the mast of a little catboat. he had looked up at the wizard with a grin and said, "here's a month's work nearly finished. i guess you might have done it in a minute with a word, eh, sir?"

"i might," said ged, "but it would likely sink the next minute, unless i kept the spells up. but if you like..." he stopped.

"well, sir?"

"well, that is a lovely little craft. she needs nothing. but if you like, i could set a binding-spell on her, to help keep her sound; or a finding-spell, to help bring her home from the sea."

he spoke hesitantly, not wanting to offend the craftsman, but pechvarry's face shone. "the little boat's for my son, sir, and if you would lay such charms on her, it would be a mighty kindness and a friendly act." and he climbed up onto the jetty to take ged's hand then and there and thank him.

after that they came to work together often, ged interweaving his spellcrafts with pechvarry's handwork on the boats he built or repaired, and in return learning from pechvarry how a boat was built, and also how a boat was handled without aid of magic: for this skill of plain sailing had been somewhat scanted on roke. often ged and pechvarry and his little son ioeth went out into the channels and lagoons, sailing or rowing one boat or another, till ged was a fair sailor, and the friendship between him and pechvarry was a settled thing.

along in late autumn the boatmaker's son fell sick. the mother sent for, the witchwoman of tesk isle, who was a good hand at healing, and all seemed well for a day or two. then in the middle of a stormy night came pechvarry hammering at ged's door, begging him to come save the child. ged ran down to the boat with him and they rowed in all haste through dark and rain to the boatmaker's house. there ged saw the child on his pallet-bed, and the mother crouching silent beside him, and the witchwoman making a smoke of corly-root and singing the nagian chant, which was the best healing she had. but she whispered to ged, "lord wizard, i think this fever is the redfever, and the child will die of it tonight"

when ged knelt and put his hands on the child, he thought the same, and he drew back a moment. in the latter months of his own long sickness the master herbal had taught him much of the healer's lore, and the first lesson and the last of all that lore was this: heal the wound and cure the illness, but let the dying spirit go.

the mother saw his movement and the meaning of it, and cried out aloud in despair. pechvarry stooped down by her saying, "the lord sparrowhawk will save him, wife. no need to cry! he's here now. he can do it."

hearing the mother's wail, and seeing the trust pechvarry had in him, ged did not know how he could disappoint them. he mistrusted his own judgment, and thought perhaps the child might be saved, if the fever could be brought down. he said, "i'll do my best, pechvarry."

he set to bathing the little boy with cold rainwater that they brought new-fallen from out of doors, and he began to say one of the spells of feverstay. the spell took no hold and made no whole, and suddenly he thought the child was dying in his arms.

summoning his power all at once and with no thought for himself, he sent his spirit out after the child's spirit, to bring it back home. he called the child's name, "ioeth!" thinking some faint answer came in his inward hearing he pursued, calling once more. then he saw the little boy running fast and far ahead of him down a dark slope, the side of some vast hill. there was no sound. the stars above the hill were no stars his eyes had ever seen. yet he knew the constellations by name: the sheaf, the door, the one who turns, the tree. they were those stars that do not set, that are not paled by the coming of any day. he had followed the dying child too far.

knowing this he found himself alone on the dark hillside. it was hard to turn back, very hard.

he turned slowly. slowly he set one foot forward to climb back up the hill, and then the other. step by step he went, each step willed. and each step was harder than the last.

the stars did not move. no wind blew over the dry steep ground. in all the vast kingdom of the darkness only he moved, slowly, climbing. he came to the top of the hill, and saw the low wall of stones there. but across the wall, facing him, there was a shadow.

the shadow did not have the shape of man or beast. it was shapeless, scarcely to be seen, but it whispered at him, though there were no words in its whispering, and it reached out towards him. and it stood on the side of the living, and he on the side of the dead.

either he must go down the hill into the desert lands and lightless cities of the dead, or he must step across the wall back into life, where the formless evil thing waited for him.

his spirit-staff was in his hand, and he raised it high. with that motion, strength came into him. as be made to leap the low wall of stones straight at the shadow, the staff burned suddenly white, a blinding light in that dim place. he leaped, felt himself fall, and saw no more.

now what pechvarry and his wife and the witch saw was this: the young wizard had stopped midway in his spell, and held the child a while motionless. then he had laid little ioeth gently down on the pallet, and had risen, and stood silent, staff in hand. all at once he raised the staff high and it blazed with white fire as if he held the lightning-bolt in his grip, and all the household things in the hut leaped out strange and vivid in that momentary fire. when their eyes were clear from the dazzlement they saw the young man lying huddled forward on the earthen floor, beside the pallet where the child lay dead.

to pechvarry it seemed that the wizard also was dead. his wife wept, but he was utterly bewildered. but the witch had some hearsay knowledge concerning magery and the ways a true wizard may go, and she saw to it that ged, cold and lifeless as he lay, was not treated as a dead man but as one sick or tranced. he was carried home, and an old woman was left to watch and see whether he slept to wake or slept for ever.

the little otak was hiding in the rafters of the house, as it did when strangers entered. there it stayed while the rain beat on the walls and the fire sank down and the night wearing slowly along left the old woman nodding beside the hearthpit. then the otak crept down and came to ged where he lay stretched stiff and still upon the bed. it began to lick his hands and wrists, long and patiently, with its dry leafbrown tongue. crouching beside his head it licked his temple, his scarred cheek, and softly his closed eyes. and very slowly under that soft touch ged roused. he woke, not knowing where he had been or where he was or what was the faint grey light in the air about him, which was the light of dawn coming to the world. then the otak curled up near his shoulder as usual, and went to sleep.

later, when ged thought back upon that night, he knew that had none touched him when he lay thus spirit-lost, had none called him back in some way, he might have been lost for good. it was only the dumb instinctive wisdom of the beast who licks his hurt companion to comfort him, and yet in that wisdom ged saw something akin to his own power, something that went as deep as wizardry. from that time forth he believed that the wise man is one who never sets himself apart from other living things, whether they have speech or not, and in later years he strove long to learn what can be learned, in silence, from the eyes of animals, the flight of birds, the great slow gestures of trees.

he had now made unscathed, for the first time, that crossing-over and return which only a wizard can make with open eyes, and which not the greatest mage can make without risk. but he had returned to a grief and a fear. the grief was for his friend pechvarry, the fear was for himself. he knew now why the archmage had feared to send him forth, and what had darkened and clouded even the mage's forseeing of his future. for it was darkness itself that had awaited him, the unnamed thing, the being that did not belong in the world, the shadow he had loosed or made. in spirit, at the boundary wall between death and life, it had waited for him these long years. it had found him there at last. it would be on his track now, seeking to draw near to him, to take his strength into itself, and suck up his' life, and clothe itself in his flesh.

soon after, he dreamed of the thing like a bear with no head or face. he thought it went fumbling about the walls of the house, searching for the door. such a dream he had not dreamed since the healing of the wounds the thing had given him. when he woke he was weak and cold, and the scars on his face and shoulder drew and ached.

now began a bad time. when he dreamed of the shadow or so much as thought of it, he felt always that same cold dread: sense and power drained out of him, leaving him stupid and astray. he raged at his cowardice, but that did no good. he sought for some protection, but there was none: the thing was not flesh, not alive, not spirit, unnamed, having no being but what he himself had given it, a terrible power outside the laws of the sunlit world. all he knew of it was that it was drawn to him and would try to work its will through him, being his creature. but in what form it could come, having no real form of its own as yet, and how it would come, and when it would come, this he did not know.

he set up what barriers of sorcery he could about his house and about the isle where he lived. such spell-walls must be ever renewed, and soon he saw that if he spent all his strength on these defenses, he would be of no use to the islanders. what could he do, between two enemies, if a dragon came from pendor?

again he dreamed, but this time in the dream the shadow was inside his house, beside the door, reaching out to him through the darkness and whispering words he did not understand. he woke in terror, and sent the werelight flaming through the air, lighting every corner of the little house till he saw no shadow anywhere. then he put wood on the coals of his firepit, and sat in the firelight hearing the autumn wind fingering at the thatch roof and whining in the great bare trees above; and he pondered long. an old anger had awakened in his heart. he would not suffer this helpless waiting, this sitting trapped on a little island muttering useless spells of lock and ward. yet he could not simply flee the trap: to do so would be to break his trust with the islanders and to leave them to the imminent dragon, undefended. there was but one way to take.

the next morning he went down among the fishermen in the principal moorage of low toming, and finding the head isle-man there said to him, "i must leave this place. i am in danger, and i put you in danger. i must go. therefore i ask your leave to go out and do away with the dragons on pendor, so that my task for you will be finished and i may leave freely. or if i fail, i should fail also when they come here, and that is better known now than later."

the isle-man stared at him all dropjawed. "lord sparrowhawk," he said, "there are nine dragons out there!"

"eight are still young, they say."

"but the old one..."

"i tell you, i must go from here. i ask your leave to rid you of the dragon-peril first, if i can do so."

"as you will, sir," the isle-man said gloomily. all that listened there thought this a folly or a crazy courage in their young wizard, and with sullen faces they saw him go, expecting no news of him again. some hinted that he meant merely to sail back by hosk to the inmost sea, leaving them in the lurch; others, among them pechvarry, held that he had gone mad, and sought death.

for four generations of men all ships had set their course to keep far from the shores of pendor island. no mage had ever come to do combat with the dragon there, for the island was on no travelled sea road, and its lords had been pirates, slave-takers, war-makers, hated by all that dwelt in the southwest parts of earthsea. for this reason none had sought to revenge the lord of pendor, after the dragon came suddenly out of the west upon him and his men where they sat feasting in the tower, and smothered them with the flames of his mouth, and drove all the townsfolk screaming into the sea. unavenged, pendor had been left to the dragon, with all its bones, and towers, and jewels stolen from long-dead princes of the coasts of paln and hosk.

all this ged knew well, and more, for ever since he came to low torning he had held in mind and pondered over all he had ever learned, of dragons. as he guided his small boat westward, not rowing now nor using the seaman's skill pechvarry had taught him, but sailing wizardly with the magewind in his sail and a spell set on prow and keel to keep them true, he watched to see the dead isle rise on the rim of the sea. speed he wanted, and therefore used the magewind, for he feared what was behind him more than what was before him. but as the day passed, his impatience turned from fear to a kind of glad fierceness. at least he sought this danger of his own will; and the nearer he came to it the more sure he was that, for this time at least, for this hour perhaps before his death, he was free. the shadow dared not follow him into a dragon's jaws. the waves ran white-tipped on the grey sea, and grey clouds streamed overhead on the north wind. he went west with the quick magewind in his sail, and came in sight of the rocks of pendor, the still streets of the town, and the gutted, falling towers.

at the entrance of the harbor, a shallow crescent bay, he let the windspell drop and stilled his little boat so it lay rocking on the waves. then he summoned the dragon: "usurper of pendor, come defend your hoard!"

his voice fell short in the sound of breakers beating on the ashen shores; but dragons have keen ears. presently one flitted up from some roofless ruin of the town like a vast black bat, thin-winged and spinybacked, and circling into the north wind came flying towards ged. his heart swelled at the sight of the creature that was a myth to his people, and he laughed and shouted, "go tell the old one to come, you wind-worm!"

for this was one of the young dragons, spawned there years ago by a she-dragon from the west reach, who had set her clutch of great leathern eggs, as they say she-dragons will, in some sunny broken room of the tower and had flown away again, leaving the old dragon of pendor to watch the young when they crawled like baneful lizards from the shell.

the young dragon made no answer. he was not large of his kind, maybe the length of a forty-oared ship, and was worm-thin for all the reach of his black membranous wings. he had not got his growth yet, nor his voice, nor any dragon-cunning. straight at ged in the small rocking boat he came, opening his long, toothed jaws as he slid down arrowy from the air: so that all ged had to do was bind his wings and limbs stiff with one sharp spell and send him thus hurtling aside into the sea like a stone falling. and the grey sea closed over him.

two dragons like the first rose up from the base of the highest tower. even as the first one they came driving straight at ged, and even so he caught both, hurled both down, and drowned them; and he had not yet lifted up his wizard's staff.

now after a little time there came three against him from the island. one of these was much greater, and fire spewed curling from its jaws. two came flying at him rattling their wings, but the big one came circling from behind, very swift, to burn him and his boat with its breath of fire. no binding spell would catch all three, because two came from north and one from south. in the instant that he saw this, ged worked a spell of changing, and between one breath and the next flew up from his boat in dragonform.

spreading broad wings and reaching talons out, he met the two head on, withering them with fire, and then turned to the third, who was larger than he and armed also with fire. on the wind over the grey waves they doubled, snapped, swooped, lunged, till smoke roiled about them red-lit by the glare of their fiery mouths. ged flew suddenly upward and the other pursued, below him. in midflight the dragon ged raised wings, stopped, and stooped as the hawk stoops, talons outstretched downward, striking and bearing the other down by neck and flank. the black wings flurried and black dragon-blood dropped in thick drops into the sea. the pendor dragon tore free and flew low and lamely to the island, where it hid, crawling into some well or cavern in the ruined town.

at once ged took his form and place again on the boat, for it was most perilous to keep that dragon-shape longer than need demanded. his hands were black with the scalding wormblood, and he was scorched about the head with fire, but this was no matter now. he waited only till he had his breath back and then called, "six i have seen, five slain, nine are told of: come out, worms!"

no creature moved nor voice spoke for a long while on the island, but only the waves beat loudly on the shore. then ged was aware that the highest tower slowly changed its shape, bulging out on one side as if it grew an arm. he feared dragon-magic, for old dragons are very powerful and guileful in a sorcery like and unlike the sorcery of men: but a moment more and he saw this was no trick of the dragon, but of his own eyes. what he had taken for a part of the tower was the shoulder of the dragon of pendor as he uncurled his bulk and lifted himself slowly up.

when he was all afoot his scaled head, spikecrowned and triple-tongued, rose higher than the broken tower's height, and his taloned forefeet rested on the rubble of the town below. his scales were grey-black, catching the daylight like broken stone. lean as a hound he was and huge as a hill. ged stared in awe. there was no song or tale could prepare the mind for this sight. almost he stared into the dragon's eyes and was caught, for one cannot look into a dragon's eyes. he glanced away from the oily green gaze that watched him, and held up before him his staff, that looked now like a splinter, like a twig.

"eight sons i had, little wizard," said the great dry voice of the dragon. "five died, one dies: enough. you will not win my hoard by killing them."

"i do not want your hoard."

the yellow smoke hissed from the dragon's nostrils: that was his laughter.

"would you not like to come ashore and look at it, little wizard? it is worth looking at."

"no, dragon." the kinship of dragons is with wind and fire, and they do not fight willingly over the sea. that had been ged's advantage so far and he kept it; but the strip of seawater between him and the great grey talons did not seem much of an advantage, any more.

it was hard not to look into the green, watching eyes.

"you are a very young wizard," the dragon said, "i did not know men came so young into their power." he spoke, as did ged, in the old speech, for that is the tongue of dragons still. although the use of the old speech binds a man to truth, this is not so with dragons. it is their own language, and they can lie in it, twisting the true words to false ends, catching the unwary hearer in a maze of mirrorwords each of which reflects the truth and none of which leads anywhere. so ged had been warned often, and when the dragon spoke he listened with an untrustful ear, all his doubts ready. but the words seemed plain and clear: "is it to ask my help that you have come here, little wizard?"

"no, dragon."

"yet i could help you. you will need help soon, against that which hunts you in the dark."

ged stood dumb.

"what is it that hunts you? name it to me."

"if i could name it..." ged stopped himself.

yellow smoke curled above the dragon's long head, from the nostrils that were two round pits of fire.

"if you could name it you could master it, maybe, little wizard. maybe i could tell you its name, when i see it close by. and it will come close, if you wait about my isle. it will come wherever you come. if you do not want it to come close you must run, and run, and keep running from it. and yet it will follow you. would you like to know its name?"

ged stood silent again. how the dragon knew of the shadow he bad loosed, he could not guess, nor how it might know the shadow's name. the archmage bad said that the shadow had no name. yet dragons have their own wisdom; and they are an older race than man. few men can guess what a dragon knows and how he knows it, and those few are the dragonlords. to ged, only one thing was sure: that, though the dragon might well be speaking truth, though he might indeed be able to tell ged the nature and name of the shadow-thing and so give him power over it, even so, even if he spoke truth, he did so wholly for his own ends.

"it is very seldom," the young man said at last, "that dragons ask to do men favors."

"but it is very common," said the dragon, "for cats to play with mice before they kill them.

"but i did not come here to play, or to be played with. i came to strike a bargain with you."

like a sword in sharpness but five times the length of any sword, the point of the dragon's tail arched up scorpionwise over his mailed back, above the tower. dryly he spoke: "i strike no bargains. i take. what have you to offer that i cannot take from you when i like?"

"safety. your safety. swear that you will never fly eastward of pendor, and i will swear to leave you unharmed."

a grating sound came from the dragon's throat like the noise of an avalanche far off, stones falling among mountains. fire danced along his three-forked tongue. he raised himself up higher, looming over the ruins. "you offer me safety! you threaten me! with what?"

"with your name, yevaud."

ged's voice shook as he spoke the name, yet he spoke it clear and loud. at the sound of it, the old dragon held still, utterly still. a minute went by, and another; and then ged, standing there in his rocking chip of a boat, smiled. he had staked this venture and his life on a guess drawn from old histories of dragon-lore learned on roke, a guess that this dragon of pendor was the same that had spoiled the west of osskil in the days of elfarran and morred, and had been driven from osskill by a wizard, elt, wise in names. the guess had held.

"we are matched, yevaud. you have the strength: i have your name. will you bargain?"

still the dragon made no reply.

many years bad the dragon sprawled on the island where golden breastplates and emeralds lay scattered among dust and bricks and bones; he had watched his black lizard-brood play among crumbling houses and try their wings from the cliffs; he had slept long in the sun, unwaked by voice or sail. he had grown old. it was hard now to stir, to face this mage-lad, this frail enemy, at the sight of whose staff yevaud, the old dragon, winced.

"you may choose nine stones from my hoard," he said at last, his voice hissing and whining in his long jaws. "the best: take your choice. then go!"

"i do not want your stones, yevaud."

"where is men's greed gone? men loved bright stones in the old days in the north... i know what it is you want, wizard. i, too, can offer you safety, for i know what can save you. i know what alone can save you. there is a horror follows you. i will tell you its name."

ged's heart leaped in him, and he clutched his staff, standing as still as the dragon stood. he fought a moment with sudden, startling hope.

it was not his own life that he bargained for. one mastery, and only one, could he hold over the dragon. he set hope aside and did what he must do.

"that is not what i ask for, yevaud."

when he spoke the dragon's name it was as if he held the huge being on a fine, thin leash, tightening it on his throat. he could feel the ancient malice and experience of men in the dragon's gaze that rested on him, he could see the steel talons each as long as a man's forearm, and the stone-hard hide, and the withering fire that lurked in the dragon's throat: and yet always the leash tightened, tightened.

he spoke again: "yevaud! swear by your name that you and your sons will never come to the archipelago."

flames broke suddenly bright and loud from the dragon's jaws, and he said, "i swear it by my name!"

silence lay over the isle then, and yevaud lowered his great head.

when he raised it again and looked, the wizard was gone, and the sail of the boat was a white fleck on the waves eastward, heading towards the fat bejewelled islands of the inner seas. then in rage the old dragon of pendor rose up breaking the tower with the writhing of his body, and beating his wings that spanned the whole width of the ruined town. but his oath held him, and he did not fly, then or ever, to the archipelago.