rejoining

the last night of the sea voyage was calm, warm, starless. dolphin moved with a long, easy rocking over the smooth swells southward. it was easy to sleep, and the people slept, and sleeping dreamed.

alder dreamed of a little animal that came in the dark and touched his hand. he could not see what it was, and when he reached out to it, it was gone, lost. again he felt the small, velvet muzzle touch his hand. he half roused, and the dream slipped from him, but the piercing ache of loss was in his heart.

in the bunk below him, seppel dreamed that he was in his own house in ferao on paln, reading an old lore-book from the dark time, content with his work; but he was interrupted. someone wanted to see him. "it will only take a minute," he told himself, and went to speak to the caller. it was a woman; her hair was dark with a glint of red in it, her face was beautiful and full of trouble. "you must send him to me," she said. "you will send him to me, won't you?" he thought: i don't know who she means, but i must pretend i do, and he said, "that will not be easy, you know." at that the woman drew her hand back and he saw that she held a stone, a heavy stone. startled, he thought she meant to throw it at him or strike him down with it, and recoiling from her, he woke in the darkness of the cabin. he lay listening to the breathing of the other sleepers and the whisper of the sea along the ship's side.

in his bunk on the other side of the small cabin, onyx lay on his back gazing into the dark; he thought his eyes were open, he thought he was awake, but he thought that many small, thin cords had been tied around his arms and legs and hands and head, and that all these cords ran out into the darkness, over land and sea, over the curve of the world: and the cords were drawing him, tugging him, so that he and the ship he was in and all its passengers were being pulled gently, gently to the place where the sea dried up, where the ship would go aground silently on blind sands. but he could not speak or do anything because the cords tied shut his jaws, his eyelids.

lebannen had come down to the cabin to sleep for a while, wanting to be fresh at dawn when they might raise roke island. he slept quickly and deeply, and his dreams fleeted and changed: a high green hill above the sea-a woman who smiled and, lifting her hand, showed him she could make the sun rise-a claimant in his court of justice in havnor from whom he learned to his horror and shame that half the people of the kingdom were starving to death in locked rooms beneath houses-a child who cried out to him, "come to me!" but he could not find the child-as he slept, his right hand held the rock in the little amulet bag at his throat, clenched it tight.

in the deck cabin above these dreamers, the women dreamed. seserakh walked up into the mountains, the beautiful dear desert mountains of her home. but she was walking on the forbidden way, the dragon path. human feet must not walk that path, must not even cross it. the dust of it was smooth and warm under her bare soles, and though she knew she must not walk on it, she walked on, until she looked up and saw that the mountains were not those she knew, but were black, jagged precipices which she could never climb. yet she must climb them.

irian flew joyous on the storm wind, but the storm sent loops of lightning up over her wings, drawing her down and down towards the clouds, and as she was pulled nearer and nearer she saw they were not clouds but black rocks, a black and jagged mountain range. her wings were tied to her sides by cords of lightning, and she fell.

tehanu crawled through a tunnel deep underground. there was not enough air to breathe and the tunnel grew narrower as she crawled. she could not turn back. but the glimmering roots of trees, growing down through the dirt into the tunnel, gave her handholds sometimes by which she could pull herself on into the dark.

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 sacred 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.

both onyx and lebannen stared at these small structures in surprise, and irian said, ''i never knew you had a house at all!"

"i didn't," said the patterner. "but bones get old."

with a little fetching and carrying from the ship, the house was soon furnished with bedding for the women, and the lean-to for the men. boys ran back and forth to the eaves of the grove with plentiful provisions from the kitchens of the great house. and late in the afternoon, the masters of roke came at the invitation of the patterner to meet with the king's party.

"is this where they gather to choose the new archmage?" tenar asked onyx, for ged had told her of that secret glade.

onyx shook his head. "i think not," he said. "the king would know, for he was there when they last met. but maybe only the patterner could tell you. because things change in this wood, you know. 'it is not always where it is.' nor are the ways through it ever quite the same, i think."

"it should be frightening," she said, "but i can't seem to be afraid."

onyx smiled. "so it is, here," he said.

she watched the masters come into the glade, led by the big, bearlike summoner and gamble the young weather-master. onyx told her who the others were: the changer, the chanter, the herbal, the hand: all grey-haired, the changer frail with age, using his wizard's staff as a walking stick. the doorkeeper, smooth-faced and almond-eyed, seemed neither young nor old. the namer, who came last, looked forty or so. his face was calm and closed. he presented himself to the king, naming himself kurremkarmerruk.

at that irian burst out, indignant, "but you are not!"

he looked at her and said evenly, "it is the namer's name.

"then my kurremkarmerruk is dead?"

he nodded.

"oh," she cried, "that's hard news to bear! he was my friend, when i had few friends here!" she turned away and would not look at the namer, angry and tearless in her grief. she had greeted the master herbal with affection, and the doorkeeper, but she did not speak to the others.

tenar saw that they watched irian under their grey brows with uneasy looks.

from her they looked at tehanu; and looked away again; and glanced back, sidelong. and tenar began to wonder what they saw when they looked at tehanu and irian. for these were men who saw with wizard's eyes.

so she bade herself forgive the summoner for his uncouth and unconcealed horror when he first saw tehanu. maybe it had not been horror. maybe it had been awe.

when they were all made known to one another and were seated in a circle, with cushions and stump seats for those who needed them, the grass for carpet, and sky and leaves for ceiling, the patterner said in his voice that still had some kargish accent in it, "if it please him, my fellow masters, we will hear the king."

lebannen stood up. as he spoke, tenar watched him with irrepressible pride. he was so beautiful, so wise in his youth! she did not follow all his words at first, only the sense and passion of them.

he told the masters, briefly and clearly, all the matter that had brought him to roke: the dragons and the dreams.

he ended, "it seemed to us that night by night all these things draw together, always more certainly, to some event, some end. it seemed to us that here, on this ground, with your knowledge and power aiding us, we might foresee and meet that event, not letting it overwhelm our understanding. the wisest of our mages have foretold: a great change is upon us. we must join together to learn what that change is, its causes, its course, and how we may hope to turn it from conflict and ruin to harmony and peace, in whose sign i rule."

brand the summoner stood to answer him. after some stately politenesses, with a special welcome to the high princess, he said, "that the dreams of men, and more than their dreams, forewarn us of dire changes, all the masters and wizards of roke agree. that there is a disturbance of the deepset boundaries between death and life-transgressions of those boundaries, and the threat of worse-we confirm. but that these disturbances can be understood or controlled by any but the masters of the art magic, we doubt. and very deeply do we doubt that dragons, whose lives and death are wholly different from that of man, can ever be trusted to submit their wild wrath and jealousy to serve human good."

"summoner," lebannen said, before irian could speak, "orm embar died for me on selidor. kalessin bore me to my throne.-here in this circle are three peoples: the kargish, the hardic, and the people of the west."

"they were all one people, once," said the namer in his level, toneless voice.

"but they are not now," said the summoner, each word heavy and separate. "do not misunderstand me because i speak hard truth, my lord king! i honor the truce you have sworn with the dragons. when the danger we are in is past, roke will aid havnor in seeking lasting peace with them. but the dragons have nothing to do with this crisis that is upon us. nor have the eastern peoples, who foreswore their immortal souls when they forgot the language of the making."

"es eyemra," said a soft, hissing voice: tehanu, standing.

the summoner stared at her.

"our language," she repeated in hardic, staring back at him.

irian laughed. "es eyemra," she said.

"you are not immortal," tenar said to the summoner. she had had no intention of speaking. she did not stand up. the words broke from her like fire from struck rock. " we are! we die to rejoin the undying world. it was you who foreswore immortality."

then they were all still. the patterner had made a small movement of his hands, a gentle movement.

his face was preoccupied, untroubled, as he studied a design of a few twigs and leaves he had made on the grass where he sat, just in front of his crossed legs. he looked up, looked round at them all. "i think we will have to go there soon," he said.

after another silence, lebannen asked, "go where, my lord?"

"into the dark," said the patterner.

as alder sat listening to them speak, slowly the voices grew faint, fading, and the warm late sunlight of late summer dimmed into darkness. nothing was left but the trees: tall blind presences between the blind earth and the sky. the oldest living children of the earth. 0 segoy, he said in his heart: made and maker, let me come to you.

the darkness went on and on, past the trees, past everything.

against that emptiness he saw the hill, the high hill that had been on their right as they walked up out of the town. he saw the dust of the road, the stones of the path, that led past that hill.

he turned now aside from the path, leaving the others, and walked up the slope.

the grasses were tall. the spent flower cases of spark-weed nodded among them. he came on a narrow path and followed it up the steep hillside. now i am myself, he said in his heart. segoy, the world is beautiful. let me come through it to you.

i can do again what i was meant to do, he thought as he walked. i can mend what was broken. i can rejoin.

he reached the top of the hill. standing there in the sun and wind among the nodding grasses he saw on his right the fields, the roofs of the little town and the big house, the bright bay and the sea beyond it. if he turned he would see behind him in the west the trees of the endless forest, fading on and on into blue distances. before him the hill slope was dim and grey, going down to the wall of stones and the darkness beyond the wall, and the crowding, calling shadows at the wall. i will come, he said to them. i will come!

warmth fell across his shoulders and his hands. wind stirred in the leaves above his head. voices spoke, speaking, not calling, not crying out his name. the patterner's eyes were watching him across the circle of grass. the summoner too was watching him. he looked down, bewildered. he tried to listen. he gathered his mind and listened.

the king was speaking, using all his skill and strength to hold these fierce, willful men and women to one purpose. "let me try to tell you, masters of roke, what i learned from the high princess as we sailed here. princess, may i speak for you?"

unveiled, she gazed across the circle at him, and bowed grave permission.

"this is her tale, then: long ago, the human and the dragon peoples were one kind, speaking one language. but they sought different things, and so they agreed to part-to go different ways. that agreement was called the vedurnan."

onyx's head went up, and seppel's bright dark eyes widened. "verw nadan," he whispered.

"the human beings went east, the dragons west. the humans gave up their knowledge of the language of the making, and in exchange received all skill and craft of hand, and ownership of all that hands can make. the dragons let go all such things. but they kept the old speech."

"and their wings," said irian.

"and their wings," lebannen said. he had caught azver's eye. "patterner, perhaps you can continue the story better than i?"

"the villagers of gont and hur-at-hur remember what the wise men of roke and the priests of karego forget," azver said. "yes, as a child i was told this tale, i think, or something like it. but the dragons had been forgotten in it. it told how the dark folk of the archipelago broke their oath. we had all promised to forgo sorcery and the language of sorcery, speaking only our common tongue. we would name no names, and make no spells. we would trust to segoy, to the powers of the earth our mother, mother of the warrior gods. but the dark folk broke the covenant. they caught the language of the making in their craft, writing it in runes. they kept it, taught it, used it. they made spells with it, with the skill of their hands, with false tongues speaking the true words. so the kargish people can never trust them. so says the tale."

irian spoke: "men fear death as dragons do not. men want to own life, possess it, as if it were a jewel in a box. those ancient mages craved everlasting life. they learned to use true names to keep men from dying. but those who cannot die can never be reborn."

"the name and the dragon are one," said kurremkarmerruk the namer. "we men lost our names at the verwnadan, but we learned how to regain them. name is self. why should death change that?"

he looked at the summoner; but brand sat heavy and grim, listening, not speaking.

"say more of this, namer, if you will," the king said.

"i say what i have half learned, half guessed, not from village tales but from the most ancient records in the isolate tower. a thousand years before the first kings of enlad, there were men in ea and solea, the first and greatest of the mages, the rune makers. it was they who learned to write the language of the making. they made the runes, which the dragons never learned. they taught us to give each soul its true name: which is its truth, its self. and with their power they granted to those who bear their true name life beyond the body's death."

"life immortal," seppel's soft voice took the word. he spoke smiling a little. "in a great land of rivers and mountains and beautiful cities, where there is no suffering or pain, and where the self endures, unchanged, unchanging, forever... that is the dream of the ancient lore of paln."

"where," the summoner said, "where is that land?"

"on the other wind," said irian. "the west beyond the west." she looked round at them all, scornful, irate. "do you think we dragons fly only on the winds of this world? do you think our freedom, for which we gave up all possessions, is no greater than that of the mindless seagulls? that our realm is a few rocks at the edge of your rich islands? you own the earth, you own the sea. but we are the fire of sunlight, we fly the wind! you wanted land to own. you wanted things to make and keep. and you have that. that was the division, the verw nadan. but you were not content with your share. you wanted not only your cares, but our freedom. you wanted the wind! and by the spells and wizardries of those oath-breakers, you stole half our realm from us, walled it away from life and light, so that you could live there forever. thieves, traitors!"

"sister," tehanu said. "these are not the men who stole from us. they are those who pay the price."

a silence followed her harsh, whispering voice. "what was the price?" said the namer. tehanu looked at irian. irian hesitated, and then said in a much subdued voice, "greed puts out the sun. these are kalessin's words."

azver the patterner spoke. as he spoke, he looked into the aisles of the trees across the clearing, as if following the slight movements of the leaves. "the ancients saw that the dragons' realm was not of the body only. that they could fly... outside of time, it may be... and envying that freedom, they followed the dragons' way into the west beyond the west. there they claimed part of that realm as their own. a timeless realm, where the self might be forever. but not in the body, as the dragons were. only in spirit could men be there... so they made a wall which no living body could cross, neither man nor dragon. for they feared the anger of the dragons. and their arts of naming laid a great net of spells upon all the western lands, so that when the people of the islands die, they would come to the west beyond the west and live there in the spirit forever.

"but as the wall was built and the spell laid, the wind ceased to blow, within the wall. the sea withdrew. the springs ceased to run. the mountains of sunrise became the mountains of the night. those that died came to a dark land, a dry land."

"i have walked in that land," lebannen said, low and unwillingly. "i do not fear death, but i fear it."

there was a silence among them.

"cob, and thorion," the summoner said in his rough, reluctant voice, "they tried to break down that wall. to bring the dead back into life."

"not into life, master," seppel said. "still, like the rune makers, they sought the bodiless, immortal self."

"yet their spells disturbed that place," the summoner said, brooding. "so the dragons began to remember the ancient wrong... and so the souls of the dead come reaching now across the wall, yearning back to life."

alder stood up. he said, "it is not life they yearn for. it is death. to be one with the earth again. to rejoin it."

they all looked at him, but he hardly knew it; his awareness was half with them, half in the dry land. the grass beneath his feet was green and sunlit, was dead and dim. the leaves of the trees trembled above him and the low stone wall lay only a little distance from him, down the dark hill. of them all he saw only tehanu; he could not see her clearly, but he knew her, standing between him and the wall. he spoke to her. "they built it, but they cannot unbuild it," he said. "will you help me, tehanu?"

"i will, hara," she said.

a shadow rushed between them, a great dark bulky strength, hiding her, seizing him, holding him; he struggled, gasped for breath, could not draw breath, saw red fire in the darkness, and saw nothing more.

they met in the starlight at the edge of the glade, the king of the western lands and the master of roke, the two powers of earthsea.

"will he live?" the summoner asked, and lebannen answered, "the healer says he is in no danger now."

"i did wrong," said the summoner. "i am sorry for it."

"why did you summon him back?" the king asked, not reproving but wanting an answer.

after a long time the summoner said, grimly, "because i had the power to do it."

they paced along in silence down an open path among the great trees. it was very dark to either hand, but the starlight shone grey where they walked.

"i was wrong. but it is not right to want to die," the summoner said. the burr of the east reach was in his voice. he spoke low, almost pleadingly. "for the very old, the very ill, it may be. but life is given us. surely it's wrong not to hold and treasure that great gift!"

"death also is given us," said the king.

alder lay on a pallet on the grass. he should lie out under the stars, the patterner had said, and the old master herbal had agreed to that. he lay asleep, and tehanu sat still beside him.

tenar sat in the doorway of the low stone house and watched her. the great stars of late summer shone above the clearing: highest of them the star called tehanu, the swan's heart, the linchpin of the sky.

seserakh came quietly out of the house and sat down on the threshold beside her. she had taken off the circlet that held her veil, leaving her mass of tawny hair unbound.

"oh my friend," she murmured, "what will happen to us? the dead are coming here. do you feel them? like the tide rising. across that wall. i think nobody can stop them. all the dead people, from the graves of all the islands of the west, all the centuries..."

tenar felt the beating, the calling, in her head and in her blood. she knew now, they all knew, what alder had known. but she held to what she trusted, even if trust had become mere hope. she said, "they are only the dead, seserakh. we built a false wall. it must be unbuilt. but there is a true one."

tehanu got up and came softly over to them. she sat on the doorstep below them.

"he's all right, he's sleeping," she whispered.

"were you there with him?" tenar asked.

tehanu nodded. "we were at the wall."

"what did the summoner do?"

"summoned him-brought him back by force."

"into life."

"into life."

"i don't know which i should fear more," tenar said, "death or life. i wish i could be done with fear."

seserakh's face, the wave of her warm hair, bent down to tenar's shoulder for a moment in a light caress. "you are brave, brave," she murmured. "but oh! i fear the sea! and i fear death!"

tehanu sat quietly. in the faint soft light that hung among the trees, tenar could see how her daughter's slender hand lay crossed over her burnt and twisted hand.

"i think," tehanu said in her soft, strange voice, "that when i die, i can breathe back the breath that made me live. i can give back to the world all that i didn't do. all that i might have been and couldn't be. all the choices i didn't make. all the things i lost and spent and wasted. i can give them back to the world. to the lives that haven't been lived yet. that will be my gift back to the world that gave me the life i did live, the love i loved, the breath i breathed."

she looked up at the stars and sighed. "not for a long time yet," she whispered. then she looked round at tenar.

seserakh stroked tenar's hair gently, rose, and went silently into the house.

"before long, i think, mother..."

"i know."

"i don't want to leave you."

"you have to leave me."

"i know."

they sat on in the glimmering darkness of the grove, silent.

"look," tehanu murmured. a shooting star crossed the sky, a quick, slow-fading trail of light.

five wizards sat in starlight. "look," one said, his hand following the trail of the shooting star.

"the soul of a dragon dying," said azver the patterner "so they say in karego-at."

"do dragons die?" asked onyx, musing. "not as we do i think."

"they don't live as we do. they move between the worlds. so says orm irian. from the world's wind to the other wind."

"as we sought to do," said seppel. "and failed."

gamble looked at him curiously. "have you on paln always known this tale, this lore we have learned today-of the parting of dragon and mankind, and the making of the dry land?"

"not as we heard it today. i was taught that the verw nadan was the first great triumph of the art magic. and that the goal of wizardry was to triumph over time and live forever... hence the evils the pelnish lore has done."

"at least you kept the mother knowledge we despised," onyx said. "as your people did, azver."

"well, you had the sense to build your great house here," the patterner said, smiling.

"but we built it wrong," onyx said. "all we build, we build wrong."

"so we must knock it down," said seppel.

"no," said gamble. "we're not dragons. we do live in houses. we have to have some walls, at least."

"so long as the wind can blow through the windows," said azver.

"and who will come in the doors?" asked the doorkeeper in his mild voice.

there was a pause. a cricket trilled industriously somewhere across the glade, fell silent, trilled again.

"dragons?" said azver.

the doorkeeper shook his head. "i think maybe the division that was begun, and then betrayed, will be completed at last," he said. "the dragons will go free, and leave us here to the choice we made."

"the knowledge of good and evil," said onyx.

"the joy of making, shaping," said seppel. "our mastery."

"and our greed, our weakness, our fear," said azver.

the cricket was answered by another, closer to the stream. the two trills pulsed, crossed, in and out of rhythm.

"what i fear," said gamble, "so much that i fear to say it-is this: that when the dragons go, our mastery will go with them. our art. our magic."

the silence of the others showed that they feared what he did. but the doorkeeper spoke at last, gently, but with some certainty. "no, i think not. they are the making, yes. but we learned the making. we made it ours. it can't be taken from us. to lose it we must forget it, throw it away."

"as my people did," said azver.

"yet your people remembered what the earth is, what life everlasting is," said seppel. "while we forgot."

there was another long silence among them.

"i could reach my hand out to the wall," gamble said in a very low voice, and seppel said, "they are near, they are very near."

"how are we to know what we should do?" onyx said.

azver spoke into the silence that followed the question.

"once when my lord the archmage was here with me in the grove, he said to me he had spent his life learning how to choose to do what he had no choice but to do."

"i wish he were here now," said onyx.

"he's done with doing," the doorkeeper murmured smiling.

"but we're not. we sit here talking on the edge of the precipice-we all know it." onyx looked round at their starlit faces. "what do the dead want of us?"

"what do the dragons want of us?" said gamble. "these women who are dragons, dragons who are women-why are they here? can we trust them?"

"have we a choice?" said the doorkeeper.

"i think not," said the patterner. an edge of hardness, a sword's edge, had come into his voice. "we can only follow."

"follow the dragons?" gamble asked.

azver shook his head. "alder."

"but he's no guide, patterner!" said gamble. "a village mender?"

onyx said, "alder has wisdom, but in his hands, not in his head. he follows his heart. certainly he doesn't seek to lead us."

"yet he was chosen from among us all."

"who chose him?" seppel asked softly.

the patterner answered him: "the dead."

they sat silent. the crickets' trill had ceased. two tall figures came towards them through the grass lit grey by starlight. "may brand and i sit with you a while?" lebannen said. "there is no sleep tonight."

on the doorstep of the house on the overfell, ged sat watching the stars above the sea. he had gone in to sleep an hour or more ago, but as he closed his eyes he saw the hillside and heard the voices rising like a wave. he got up at once and went outside, where he could see the stars move.

he was tired. his eyes would close, and then he would be there by the wall of stones, his heart cold with dread that he would be there forever, not knowing the way back. at last, impatient and sick of fear, he got up again, fetched a lantern from the house and lit it, and set off on the path to moss's house. moss might or might not be frightened; she lived pretty near the wall, these days. but heather would be in a panic, and moss would not be able to soothe her. and since whatever had to be done, it wasn't he who could do it this time, he could at least go comfort the poor half-wit. he could tell her it was only dreams.

it was hard going in the dark, the lantern throwing great shadows of small things across the path. he walked slower than he would have liked to walk, and stumbled sometimes.

he saw a light in the widower's house, late as it was. a child wailed, over in the village. mother, mother, why are the people crying? who are the people crying, mother? there was no sleep there, either. there was not much sleep anywhere in earthsea, tonight, ged thought. he grinned a little as he thought it; for he had always liked that pause, that fearful pause, the moment before things changed.

alder woke. he lay on earth and felt its depth beneath him. above him the bright stars burned, the stars of summer, moving between leaf and leaf with the wind's blowing, moving from east to west with the world's turning. he watched them a while before he let them go. tehanu was waiting for him on the hill.

"what must we do, hara?" she asked him.

"we have to mend the world," he said. he smiled, because his heart had grown light at last. "we have to break the wall."

"can they help us?" she asked, for the dead were gathered waiting down in the darkness as countless as grass or sand or stars, silent now, a great, dim beach of souls.

"no," he said, "but maybe others can." he walked down the hill to the wall. it was little more than waist-high here. he put his hands on one of the stones of the coping row and tried to move it. it was fixed fast, or was heavier than a stone should be; he could not lift it, could not make it move at all.

tehanu came beside him. "help me," he said. she put her hands on the stone, the human hand and the burnt claw, gripping it as well as she could, and gave a lifting tug as he did. the stone moved a little, then a little more. "push it!" she said, and together they pushed it slowly out of place, grating hard on the rock beneath it, till it fell on the far side of the wall with a dull heavy thump.

the next stone was smaller; together they could lift it up out of its place. they let it drop into the dust on the near side.

a tremor ran through the ground under their feet then. small chinking stones in the wall rattled. and with a long sigh, the multitudes of the dead came closer to the wall.

the patterner stood up suddenly and stood listening. leaves stormed all about the glade, the trees of the grove bowed and trembled as if under a great wind, but there was no wind.

"now it changes," he said, and he walked away from them, into the darkness under the trees.

the summoner, the doorkeeper, and seppel rose and followed him, quick and silent. gamble and onyx followed more slowly after them.

lebannen stood up; he took a few steps after the others, hesitated, and hurried across the glade to the low house of stone and sod. "irian," he said, stooping to the dark doorway. "irian, will you take me with you?"

she came out of the house; she was smiling, and there was a kind of fiery brightness all about her. "come then, come quick," she said, and took his hand. her hand burned like a coal of fire as she lifted him into the other wind.

after a little time seserakh came out of the house into the starlight, and after her came tenar. they stood and looked about them. nothing moved; the trees were still again.

"they are all gone," seserakh whispered. "on the dragons' way."

she took a step forward, gazing into the dark.

"what are we to do, tenar?"

"we are to keep the house," tenar said.

"oh!" seserakh whispered, dropping to her knees. she had seen lebannen lying near the doorway, stretched facedown in the grass. "he isn't dead-i think-oh, my dear lord king, don't go, don't die!"

"he's with them. stay with him. keep him warm. keep the house, seserakh," tenar said. she went to where alder lay, his unseeing eyes turned to the stars. she sat down by him, her hand on his. she waited.

alder could scarcely move the great stone his hands were on, but the summoner was beside him, stooping with his shoulder against it, and said, "now!" together they pushed it till it overbalanced and dropped down with that same heavy, final thump on the far side of the wall.

others were there now with him and tehanu, wrenching at the stones, casting them down beside the wall. alder saw his own hands cast shadows for an instant from a red gleam. orm irian, as he had seen her first, a great dragon shape, had let out her fiery breath as she struggled to move a boulder from the lowest rank of stones, deepset in the earth. her talons struck sparks and her thorned back arched, and the rock rolled ponderously free, breaching the wall entirely in that place.

there was a vast, soft cry among the shadows on the other side, like the sound of the sea on a hollow shore. their darkness surged up against the wall. but alder looked up and saw that it was no longer dark. light moved in that sky where the stars had never moved, quick sparks of fire far in the dark west.

"kalessin!"

that was tehanu's voice. he looked at her. she was gazing upward, westward. she had no eye for earth.

she reached up her arms. fire ran along her hands, her arms, into her hair, into her face and body, flamed up into great wings above her head, and lifted her into the air, a creature all fire, blazing, beautiful.

she cried out aloud, a clear, wordless cry. she flew high, headlong, fast, up into the sky where the light was growing and a white wind had erased the unmeaning stars.

from among the hosts of the dead a few here and there, like her, rose up flickering into dragons, and mounted on the wind.

most came forward afoot. they were not pressing, not crying out now, but walking with unhurried certainty towards the fallen places in the wall: great multitudes of men and women, who as they came to the broken wall did not hesitate but stepped across it and were gone: a wisp of dust, a breath that shone an instant in the ever-brightening light.

alder watched them. he still held in his hands, forgotten, a chinking stone he had wrenched from the wall to loosen a larger rock. he watched the dead go free. at last he saw her among them. he tossed the stone aside then and stepped forward. "lily," he said. she saw him and smiled and held out her hand to him. he took her hand, and they crossed together into the sunlight.

lebannen stood by the ruined wall and watched the dawn brighten in the east. there was an east now, where there had been no direction, no way to go. there was east and west, and light and motion. the very ground moved, shook, shivering like a great animal, so that the wall of stones beyond where they had broken it shuddered and slid into rubble. fire broke from the far, black peaks of the mountains called paln, the fire that burns in the heart of the world, the fire that feeds dragons.

he looked into the sky over those mountains and saw, as he and ged had seen them once above the western sea, the dragons flying on the wind of morning.

three came wheeling towards him where he stood among the others near the crest of the hill, above the ruined wall. two he knew, orm irian and kalessin. the third had bright mail, gold, with wings of gold. that one flew highest and did not stoop down to them. orm irian played about her in the air and they flew together, one chasing the other higher and higher, till all at once the highest rays of the rising sun struck tehanu and she burned like her name, a great bright star.

kalessin circled again, flew low, and alighted hugely amid the ruins of the wall.

"agni lebannen," said the dragon to the king.

"eldest," the king said to the dragon.

"aissadan verw nadannan," said the vast, hissing voice, like a sea of cymbals.

beside lebannen, brand the summoner of roke stood planted solidly. he repeated the dragon's words in the speech of the making, and then said them in hardic: "what was divided is divided."

the patterner stood near them, his hair bright in the brightening light. he said, "what was built is broken. what was broken is made whole."

then he looked up yearning into the sky, at the gold dragon and the red-bronze one; but they had flown almost out of sight, wheeling now in vast gyres over the long, falling land, where empty shadow cities faded to nothing in the light of day.

"eldest," he said, and the long head swung slowly back to him.

"will she follow the way back through the forest, sometimes?" azver asked in the speech of dragons.

kalessin's long, fathomless, yellow eye regarded him. the enormous mouth seemed, like the mouths of lizards, closed upon a smile. it did not speak.

then ponderously dragging its length along the wall so that stones still standing slid and fell grating beneath its iron belly, kalessin writhed away from them, and with a rush and rattle of upraised wings pushed off from the hillside and flew low over the land towards the mountains, whose peaks now were bright with smoke and white steam, fire and sunlight.

"come, friends," said seppel in his soft voice. "it's not yet our time to go free."

sunlight was in the sky above the crowns of the highest trees, but the glade still held the chill grey of dawn. tenar sat with her hand on alder's hand, her face bowed down. she looked at the cold dew beading a grass blade, how it hung in tiny, delicate drops along the blade, each drop reflecting all the world.

someone spoke her name. she did not look up.

"he's gone," she said.

the patterner knelt by her. he touched alder's face with a gentle hand.

he knelt there silent a while. then he said to tenar in her language, "my lady, i saw tehanu. she flies golden on the other wind."

tenar glanced up at him. his face was white and worn, but there was a shadow of glory in his eyes.

she struggled and then said, speaking roughly and almost inaudibly, "whole?"

he nodded.

she stroked alder's hand, the mender's hand, fine, skillful. tears came into her eyes.

"let me be with him a while," she said, and she began to cry. she put her hands to her face and cried hard, bitterly, silently.

azver went to the little group by the door of the house. onyx and gamble were near the summoner, who stood, heavy and anxious, near the princess. she crouched beside lebannen, her arms across him, protecting him, daring any wizard to touch him. her eyes flashed. she held lebannen's short steel dagger naked in her hand.

"i came back with him," brand said to azver. "i tried to stay with him. i wasn't sure of the way. she won't let me near him."

"ganai," azver said, her title in kargish, princess.

her eyes flashed up to him. "oh may atwah-wuluah be thanked and the mother praised for ever!" she cried. "lord azver! make these accursed-sorcerers go away. kill them! they have killed my king." she held out the dagger to him by its slender steel blade.

"no, princess. he went with the dragon irian. but this sorcerer brought him back to us. let me see him," and he knelt and turned lebannen's face a little to see it better, and laid his hands on his chest. "he's cold," he said. "it was a hard way back. take him in your arms, princess. keep him warm."

"i have tried to," she said, biting her lip. she flung down the dagger and bent to the unconscious man. "o poor king!" she said softly in hardic, "dear king, poor king!"

azver got up and said to the summoner, "i think he will be all right, brand. she is much more use than we are, now."

the summoner put out his big hand and took hold of azver's arm. "steady now," he said.

"the doorkeeper," azver said, going whiter than before and looking around the glade.

"he came back with the pelnishman," brand said. "sit down, azver."

azver obeyed him, sitting down on the log seat the old changer had sat on in their circle the afternoon before. a thousand years ago it seemed. the old men had gone back to the school in the evening... and then the long night had begun, the night that brought the wall of stones so close that to sleep was to be there, and to be there was terror, so no one had slept. no one, maybe, in all roke, in all the isles... only alder, who went to guide them... azver found he was dozing and shivering.

gamble tried to make him go inside the winter house, but azver insisted that he should be near the princess to interpret for her. and near tenar, he thought without saying it, to protect her. to let her grieve. but alder was done with grieving. he had passed his grief to her. to them all. his joy...

the herbal came from the school and fussed about azver, put a winter cloak over his shoulders. he sat on in a weary, feverish half doze, not heeding the others, dimly irritated by the presence of so many people in his sweet silent glade, watching the sunlight creep down among the leaves. his vigil was rewarded when the princess came to him, knelt before him looking with solicitous respect into his face, and said, "lord azver, the king would speak with you."

she helped him stand up, as if he were an old man. he did not mind. "thank you, gainha? he said.

"i am not queen," she said with a laugh.

"you will be," said the patterner.

it was the strong tide of the full moon, and dolphin had to wait for the slack to run between the armed cliffs. tenar did not disembark in gont port till midmorning, and then there was the long walk uphill. it was near sunset when she came through re albi and took the cliff path to the house.

ged was watering the cabbages, well grown by now.

he straightened up and looked at her coming to him, that hawk look, frowning. "ah," he said.

"oh my dear," she said. she hurried, the last few steps, as he came to her.

she was tired. she was very glad to sit with him with a glass of spark's good red wine and watch the evening of early autumn flare into gold over all the western sea.

"how can i tell you everything?" she said.

"tell it backward," he said.

"all right. i will. they wanted me to stay, but i said i wanted to go home. but there was a council meeting, the king's council, you know, for the betrothal. there'll be a grand wedding and all, of course, but i don't think i have to go. because that was truly when they married. with elfar-ran's ring. our ring."

he looked at her and smiled, the broad, sweet smile that she thought, perhaps wrongly, perhaps rightly, nobody but her had ever seen on his face.

"yes?" he said.

"lebannen came and stood here, see, on my left, and then seserakh came and stood here on my right. in front of morred's throne. and i held up the ring. the way i did when we brought it to havnor, remember? in lookfar, in the sunlight? lebannen took it in his hands and kissed it and gave it back to me. and i put it on her arm, it just went over her hand-she's not a little woman, seserakh-oh, you should see her, ged! what a beauty she is, what a lion! he's met his match.-and everybody shouted. and there were festivals and so on. and so i could get away."

"go on."

"backward?"

"backward."

"well. before that was roke."

"roke's never simple."

"no."

they drank their red wine in silence.

"tell me of the patterner."

she smiled. "seserakh calls him the warrior. she says only a warrior would fall in love with a dragon."

"who followed him to the dry land-that night?"

"he followed alder."

"ah," ged said, with surprise and a certain satisfaction.

"so did others of the masters. and lebannen, and irian..."

"and tehanu."

a silence.

"she went out of the house. when i came out she was gone." a long silence. "azver saw her. in the sunrise. on the other wind."

a silence.

"they're all gone. there are no dragons left in havnor or the western islands. onyx said: as that shadow place and all the shadows in it rejoined the world of light, so they regained their true realm."

"we broke the world to make it whole," ged said.

after a long time tenar said in a soft, thin voice, "the patterner believes irian will come to the grove if he calls to her."

ged said nothing, till, after a while: "look there, tenar."

she looked where he was looking, into the dim gulf of air above the western sea.

"if she comes, she'll come from there," he said. "and if she doesn't come, she is there."

she nodded. "i know." her eyes were full of tears. "lebannen sang me a song, on the ship, when we were going back to havnor." she could not sing; she whispered the words. "o my joy, be free..."

he looked away, up at the forests, at the mountain, the darkening heights.

"tell me," she said, "tell me what you did while i was gone."

"kept the house."

"did you walk in the forest?"

"not yet," he said.

the end