The Other Wind by Ursula K. Le Guin
“Medeu,” Tehanu whispered, coming up beside Lebannen, her gaze unwavering on the dragon. The great creature’s head swung round again and the immense amber eye in a socket of shining, wrinkled scales gazed back, unblinking.
The dragon spoke.
Onyx, understanding, murmured to the king what it said and what Tehanu replied. “Kalessin’s daughter, my sister,” it said. “You do not fly.”
“I cannot change, sister,” Tehanu said.
“Shall I?”
“For a while, if you will.”
Then those on the terrace and in the windows of the towers saw the strangest thing they might ever see however long they lived in a world of sorceries and wonders. They saw the dragon, the huge creature whose scaled belly and thorny tail dragged and stretched half across the breadth of the terrace, and whose red-horned head reared up twice the height of the king—they saw it lower that big head, and tremble so that its wings rattled like cymbals, and not smoke but a mist breathed out of its deep nostrils, clouding its shape, so that it became cloudy like thin fog or worn glass; and then it was gone. The midday sun beat down on the scored, scarred, white pavement. There was no dragon. There was a woman. She stood some ten paces from Tehanu and the king. She stood where the heart of the dragon might have been.
She was young, tall, and strongly built, dark, dark-haired, wearing a farm woman’s shift and trousers, barefoot. She stood motionless, as if bewildered. She looked down at her body. She lifted up her hand and looked at it. “The little thing!” she said, in the common speech, and she laughed. She looked at Tehanu. “It’s like putting on the shoes I wore when I was five,” she said.
The two women moved towards each other. With a certain stateliness, like that of armed warriors saluting or ships meeting at sea, they embraced. They held each other lightly, but for some moments. They drew apart, and both turned to face the king.
“Lady Irian,” he said, and bowed.
She looked a little nonplussed and made a kind of country curtsey. When she looked up he saw her eyes were the color of amber. He looked instantly away.
“I’ll do you no harm in this guise,” she said, with a broad, white smile. “Your majesty,” she added uncomfortably, trying to be polite.
He bowed again. It was he that was nonplussed now. He looked at Tehanu, and round at Tenar, who had come out onto the terrace with Alder. Nobody said anything.
Irian’s eyes went to Onyx, standing in his grey cloak just behind the king, and her face lighted up again. “Sir,” she said, “are you from Roke Island? Do you know the Lord Patterner?”
Onyx bowed or nodded. He too kept his eyes from hers.
“Is he well? Does he walk among his trees?”
Again the wizard bowed.
“And the Doorkeeper, and the Herbal, and Kurremkarmerruk? They befriended me, they stood by me. If you go back there, greet them with my love and honor, if you please.”
“I will,” the wizard said.
“My mother is here,” Tehanu said softly to Irian. “Tenar of Atuan.”
“Tenar of Gont,” Lebannen said, with a certain ring to his voice.
Looking with open wonder at Tenar, Irian said, “It was you that brought the Rune Ring from the land of the Hoary Men, along with the Archmage?”
“It was,” Tenar said, staring with equal frankness at Irian.
Above them on the balcony that encircled the Tower of the Sword near its summit there was movement: the trumpeters had come out to sound the hour, but at the moment all four of them were gathered on the south side overlooking the terrace, peering down to see the dragon. There were faces in every window of the palace towers, and the thrum of voices down in the streets could be heard like a tide coming in.
“When they sound the first hour,” Lebannen said, “the council will gather again. The councillors will have seen you come, my lady, or heard of your coming. So if it please you, I think it best that we go straight among them and let them behold you. And if you’ll speak to them I promise you they’ll listen.”
“Very well,” Irian said. For a moment there was a ponderous, reptilian impassivity in her. When she moved, that vanished, and she seemed only a tall young woman who stepped forward quite awkwardly, saying with a smile to Tehanu, “I feel as if I’ll float up like a spark, there’s no weight to me!”
The four trumpets up in the tower sounded to west, north, east, south in turn, one phrase of the lament a king five hundred years ago had made for the death of his friend.
For a moment the king now remembered the face of that man, Erreth-Akbe, as he stood on the beach of Selidor, dark-eyed, sorrowful, mortally wounded, among the bones of the dragon who had killed him. Lebannen felt it strange that he should think of such faraway things at such a moment; and yet it was not strange, for the living and the dead, men and dragons, all were drawing together to some event he could not see.
He paused until Irian and Tehanu came up to him. As he walked on into the palace with them he said, “Lady Irian, there are many things I would ask you, but what my people fear and what the council will desire to know is whether your people intend to make war on us, and why.”
She nodded, a heavy, decisive nod. “I will tell them what I know.”
When they came to the curtained doorway behind the dais, the throne room was all in confusion, an uproar of voices, so that the crash of Prince Sege’s staff was barely heard at first. Then silence came suddenly on them and they all turned to see the king come in with the dragon.
Lebannen did not sit but stood before the throne, and Irian stood to his left.
“Hear the king,” Sege said into that dead silence.
The king said, “Councillors! This is a day that will long be told and sung. Your sons’ daughters and your daughters’ sons will say, ‘I am the grandchild of one who was of the Dragon Council!’ So honor her whose presence honors us. Hear Orm Irian.”
Some of those who were at the Dragon Council said afterwards that if they looked straight at her she seemed only a tall woman standing there, but if they looked aside what they saw in the corner of their eye was a vast shimmer of smoky gold that dwarfed king and throne. And many of them, knowing a man must not look into a dragon’s eye, did look aside; but they stole glimpses too. The women looked at her, some thinking her plain, some beautiful, some pitying her for having to go barefoot in the palace. And a few councillors, not having rightly understood, wondered who the woman was, and when the dragon would be coming.
All the time she spoke, that complete silence endured. Though her voice had the lightness of most women’s voices, it filled the high hall easily. She spoke slowly and formally, as if she were translating in her mind from the older speech.
“My name was Irian, of the Domain of Old Iria on Way. I am Orm Irian now. Kalessin, the Eldest, calls me daughter. I am sister to Orm Embar, whom the king knew, and grandchild of Orm, who killed the king’s companion Erreth-Akbe and was killed by him. I am here because my sister Tehanu called to me.
“When Orm Embar died on Selidor, destroying the mortal body of the wizard Cob, Kalessin came from beyond the west and brought the king and the great mage to Roke. Then returning to the Dragons’ Run, the Eldest called the people of the west, whose speech had been taken from them by Cob, and who were still bewildered. Kalessin said to them, ‘You let evil turn you into evil. You have been mad. You are sane again, but so long as the winds blow from the east you can never be what you were, free of both good and evil.’
“Kalessin said: ‘Long ago we chose. We chose freedom. Men chose the yoke. We chose fire and the wind. They chose water and the earth. We chose the west, and they the east.’
“And Kalessin said: ‘But always among us some envy them their wealth, and always among them some envy us our liberty. So it was that evil came into us and will come into us again, until we choose again, and forever, to be free. Soon I am going beyond the west to fly on the other wind. I will lead you there, or wait for you, if you will come.’
“Th
“Then Kalessin said, ‘Once we were one people. And in sign of that, in every generation of men, one or two are born who are dragons also. And in every generation of our people, longer than the quick lives of men, one of us is born who is also human. Of these one is now living in the Inner Isles. And there is one of them living there now who is a dragon. These two are the messengers, the bringers of choice. There will be no more such born to us or to them. For the balance changes.’
“And Kalessin said to them: ‘Choose. Come with me to fly on the far side of the world, on the other wind. Or stay and put on the yoke of good and evil. Or dwindle into dumb beasts.’ And at the last Kalessin said: ‘The last to make the choice will be Tehanu. After her there will be no choosing. There will be no way west. Only the forest will be, as it is always, at the center.’“
The people of the King’s Council were still as stones, listening. Irian stood moveless, gazing as if through them, as she spoke.
“After some years had passed, Kalessin flew beyond the west. Some followed, some did not. When I came to join my people, I followed Kalessin. But I go there and come back, so long as the winds will bear me.
“The disposition of my people is jealous and irate. Those who stayed here on the winds of the world began to fly in bands or singly to the isles of men, saying again, ‘They stole half our realm. Now we will take all the west of their realm, and drive them out of it, so they cannot bring their good and evil to us any more. We will not put our necks into their yoke.’
“But they did not try to kill the islanders, because they remembered being mad, when dragon killed dragon. They hate you, but they will not kill you unless you try to kill them.
“So one of these bands has come now to this island, Havnor, that we call the Cold Hill. The dragon who came before them and spoke to Tehanu is my brother Ammaud. They seek to drive you into the east, but Ammaud, like me, enacts the will of Kalessin, seeking to free my people from the yoke you wear. If he and I and the children of Kalessin can prevent harm to your people and ours, we will do so. But dragons have no king, and obey no one, and will fly where they will. For a while they will do as my brother and I ask in Kalessin’s name. But not for long. And they fear nothing in the world, except your wizardries of death.”
That last word rang heavily in the great hall in the silence that followed Irian’s voice.
The king spoke, thanking Irian. He said, “You honor us with your truth-speaking. By my name, we will speak truth to you. I beg you to tell me, daughter of Kalessin who bore me to my kingdom, what it is you say the dragons fear? I thought they feared nothing in the world or out of it.”
“We fear your spells of immortality,” she said bluntly.
“Of immortality?” Lebannen hesitated. “I am no wizard. Master Onyx, speak for me, if the daughter of Kalessin will permit.”
Onyx stood up. Irian looked at him with cold, impartial eyes, and nodded.
“Lady Irian,” the wizard said, “we make no spells of immortality. Only the wizard Cob sought to make himself immortal, perverting our art to do so.” He spoke slowly and with evident care, searching his mind as he spoke. “Our Archmage, with my lord the king, and with the aid of Orm Embar, destroyed Cob and the evil he had done. And the Archmage gave all his power up to heal the world, restoring the Equilibrium. No other wizard in our lifetime has sought to—” He stopped short.
Irian looked straight at him. He looked down.
“The wizard I destroyed,” she said, “the Summoner of Roke, Thorion—what was it he sought?”
Onyx, stricken, said nothing.
“He came back from death,” she said. “But not living, as the Archmage and the king did. He was dead, but he came back across the wall by his arts—by your arts—you men of Roke! How are we to trust anything you say? You have unmade the balance of the world. Can you restore it?”
Onyx looked at the king. He was openly distressed. “My lord, I cannot think that this is the place to discuss such matters—before all men—until we know what we are talking about, and what we must do…”
“Roke keeps its secrets,” Irian said with calm scorn.
“But on Roke—” Tehanu said, not standing; her weak voice died away. Prince Sege and the king both looked at her and motioned her to speak.
She stood up. At first she kept the left side of her face to the councillors, all sitting motionless on their benches, like stones with eyes.
“On Roke is the Immanent Grove,” she said. “Isn’t that what Kalessin meant, sister, speaking of the forest that is at the center?” Turning to Irian, she showed the people watching her the whole ruin of her face; but she had forgotten them. “Maybe we need to go there,” she said. “To the center of things.”
Irian smiled. “I’ll go there,” she said.
They both looked at the king.
“Before I send you to Roke, or go with you,” he said slowly, “I must know what is at stake. Master Onyx, I’m sorry that matters so grave and chancy force us to debate our course so openly. But I trust my councillors to support me as I find and hold the course. What the council needs to know is that our islands need not fear attack from the People of the West—that the truce, at least, holds.”
“It holds,” Irian said.
“Can you say how long?”
“A half year?” she offered, carelessly, as if she had said, “A day or two.”
“We will hold the truce a half year, in hope of peace to follow. Am I right to say, Lady Irian, that to have peace with us, your people want to know that our wizards’ meddling with the… laws of life and death will not endanger them?”
“Endanger all of us,” Irian said. “Yes.”
Lebannen considered this and then said, in his most royal, affable, urbane manner, “Then I believe I should come to Roke with you.” He turned to the benches. “Councillors, with the truce declared, we must seek the peace. I’ll go wherever I must on that quest, ruling as I do in the Sign of El-farran’s Ring. If you see any hindrance to this journey, speak here and now. For it may be that the balance of power within the Archipelago, as well as the Equilibrium of the whole, is in question. And if I go, I must go now. Autumn is near, and it’s not a short voyage to Roke Island.”
The stones with eyes sat there for a long minute, all staring, none speaking. Then Prince Sege said, “Go, my lord king, go with our hope and trust, and the magewind in your sails.” There was a little murmur of assent from the councillors: Yes, yes, hear him.
Sege asked for further questions or debate; nobody spoke. He closed the session.
Leaving the throne room with him, Lebannen said, “Thank you, Sege,” and the old prince said, “Between you and the dragon, Lebannen, what could the poor souls say?”
* * *
CHAPTER FOUR
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DOLPHIN
Many matters had to be settled and arrangements made before the king could leave his capital; there was also the question of who should go with him to Roke. Irian and Tehanu, of course, and Tehanu wanted her mother with her. Onyx said that Alder should by all means go with them, and also the Pelnish wizard Seppel, for the Lore of Paln had much to do with these matters of crossing between life and death. The king chose Tosla to captain the Dolphin, as he had done before. Prince Sege would look after affairs of state in the king’s absence, with a selected group of councillors, as he also had done before.
So it was all settled, or so Lebannen thought, until Tenar came to him two days before they were to sail and said, “You’ll be talking of war and peace with the dragons, and of matters even beyond that, Irian says, matters that concern the balance of all things in Earthsea. The people of the Kargad Lands should hear these discussions and have a voice in them.”
“Not I. I am not a subject of the High King. The only person here who can represent his people is his daughter.”
Lebannen took a step away from her, turned partly from her, and at last said in a voice stifled by the effort to speak without anger, “You know that she is completely unfitted for such a journey.”
“I know nothing of the kind.”
“She has no education.”
“She’s intelligent, practical, and courageous. She’s aware of what her station requires of her. She hasn’t been trained to rule, but then what can she learn boxed up there in the River House with her servants and some court ladies?”
“To speak the language, in the first place!”
“She’s doing that. I’ll interpret for her when she needs it.”
After a brief pause Lebannen spoke carefully: “I understand your concern for her people. I will consider what can be done. But the princess has no place on this voyage.”
“Tehanu and Irian both say she should come with us. Master Onyx says that, like Alder of Taon, her being sent here at this time cannot be an accident.”
Lebannen walked farther away. His tone remained stiffly patient and polite: “I cannot permit it. Her ignorance and inexperience would make her a serious burden. And I can’t put her at risk. Relationships with her father—”
“In her ignorance, as you call it, she showed us how to answer Ged’s questions. You are as disrespectful of her as her father is. You speak of her as of a mindless thing.” Tenar’s face was pale with anger. “If you’re afraid to put her at risk, ask her to take it herself.”
Again there was a silence. Lebannen spoke with the same wooden calmness, not looking directly at her. “If you and Tehanu and Orm Irian believe this woman should come with us to Roke, and Onyx agrees with you, I accept your judgment, though I believe it is mistaken. Please tell her that if she wishes to come, she may do so.”