The Farthest Shore: Chapters 1–2

Behind those were rooms and courts, passages, corridors, towers, and at last the heavy outmost walls of the Great House of Roke, which would stand any assault of war or earthquake or the sea itself, being built not only of stone, but of incontestable magic.

The boy leapt to his feet, lithe and startled.

He had been trained by civil, courtly people, and did not have the self-consciousness of the young.

“That all the fortunes witches read in smoke and water pools tell of ill, and that their love-potions go amiss. But these are people without true wizardry.”

“Fortune-telling and love-potions are not of much account, but old women are worth listening to. Well, your message will indeed be discussed by the Masters of Roke. But I do not know, Arren, what counsel they may give your father. For Enlad is not the first land from which such tidings have come.”

For he had hoped to bring a prompt cure home to Enlad.

They were impartial, calm, compassionate.

He had been an active boy, delighting in games, taking pride and pleasure in the skills of body and mind, apt at his duties of ceremony and governing, which were neither light nor simple.

Somewhere to the west of the Great House of Roke, and often somewhat south of it, the Immanent Grove is usually to be seen. There is no place for it on maps, and there is no way to it except for those who know the way to it.

He came to the path that led to the Immanent Grove, a path that led always straight and direct no matter how time and the world bent awry about it, and following it came soon into the shadow of the trees.

Seeing them one could believe at last that the Grove never moved: they were like immemorial towers grey with years; their roots were like the roots of mountains.

Among the giants grew sapling trees, tall and vigorous with bright crowns of foliage, and seedlings, slight leafy wands no taller than a girl.

Since the restoral of the Ring of Erreth-Akbe, the barbarians of Kargad had ceased their forays and had struck some bargains of trade and peace with the Inner Lands.

They were not friendly folk, and held aloof.

Such had been the Master Patterner ten years ago, a sword-begirt, red-plumed young savage from Karego-At, arriving at Gont on a rainy morning and telling the Doorkeeper in imperious and scanty Hardic, “I come to learn!”

Since there are sorcerers and witches on all the isles, and the uses of magic are as needful to their people as bread and as delightful as music, so the School of Wizardry is a place held in reverence.

The nine mages who are the Masters of the School are considered the equals of the great princes of the Archipelago.

Their master, the warden of Roke, the Archmage, is held to be accountable to no man at all, except the King of All the Isles; and that only by an act of fealty, by heart’s gift, for not even a king could constrain so great a mage to serve the common law, if his will were otherwise.

We come to the refectory, and everybody charms up whatever he wants to eat.

Gamble was getting hoarse with the effort to push his guest into incredulity.

They stood, each thinking his own thoughts, yet companionable, until a gong rang sonorous in the Great House behind them.

Gamble, excited and uneasy, wanted to return to the Great House to hear any rumor of what the Council of the Masters portended.

He had slept on a bed all his life, under soft furs; even in the twenty-oared galley in which he had come from Enlad they had provided their young prince with more comfort than this—a straw pallet on the stone floor and a ragged blanket of felt.

He had slept on a bed all his life, under soft furs; even in the twenty-oared galley in which he had come from Enlad they had provided their young prince with more comfort than this—a straw pallet on the stone floor and a ragged blanket of felt.

But his ardent imagination swept him on past that, so that in a moment he saw himself face-to-face with the Archmage once more in the court beneath the rowan tree, and the sky was dark and the tree leafless and the fountain silent; and he said, “My lord, the storm is on us, yet I will stay by thee and serve thee,” and the Archmage smiled at him.

The enchantment with which the ancient stones were laid and protected was here palpable.

“Last night,” the Archmage said, “we met in council. Long we talked, yet resolved nothing. I would hear you say now, in the morning light, whether you uphold or gainsay your judgment of the night.”

“Aye,” said the Master Hand, a slight, quick man, modest of bearing but with clear and seeing eyes.

“Rather than to go seeking blindly among unfriendly peoples on strange seas, would it not be wiser to stay here, where all magic is strong, and find out by your arts what this evil or disorder is?”
“My arts do not avail me,” the Archmage said.

He was bewildered and abashed by these grave, honest, terrible men.

One by one the others gave assent quietly, and by ones and twos withdrew, until only the Summoner was left of the seven.

Stay here, and watch the sunrise to see if it be bright, and watch at the wall of stones to see who crosses it and where their faces are turned. There is a breach, Thorion, there is a break, a wound, and it is this I go to seek.

The boy stood at some distance from the hearth, not knowing if he should take his leave or wait to be dismissed, irresolute and somewhat desolate, feeling again like a small figure in a dark, illimitable, confusing space.

He ended abruptly, looking about him with piercing, unseeing eyes.

The ship’s captain looked dour. He knew how the bringer of such news might be received by the Prince of Enlad.

She was a blithe, patient woman, but Arren knew that he was the foundation of her contentment, that she longed for his quick return.

When he was buying ink and paper he had noticed, on a tray of clasps and brooches, a silver brooch in the shape of a wild rose; and his mother was called Rose.

The sword of Serriadh had never been laid away or hoarded up, but worn; yet was unworn by the centuries, unweakened, because it had been forged with a great power of enchantment.

Heavy, the sword hindered his walk, dragged at him.

Turning away he pulled his cloak over the sheath that held the old, unyielding weapon, the deadly thing he had inherited.