The Other Wind by Ursula K. Le Guin
It was as if the spine of rock had been cracked apart by a wrenching of the earth and had never healed again. The western sunlight streaming over the lips of the cave lighted the vertical rock faces a little way down, but below that was darkness.
There was a tannery in the valley under the ridge, south of it. The tanners had brought their wastes up here and dumped them into the crack, carelessly, so that all around it was a litter of rancid scraps of half-cured leather and a stink of rot and urine. There was another smell from the depths of the cave as they approached the sheer edge: a cold, sharp, earthy air that made Alder draw back.
“I grieve for this, I grieve for this!” the wizard of Paln said aloud, looking around at the rubbish and down at the roofs of the tannery with a strange expression. But he spoke to Alder after a while in his usual mild way: “This is the cave or cleft called Aurun, that we know from our most ancient maps in Paln, where it is also called the Lips of Paor. It used to speak to the people here, when they first came here from the west. A long time ago. Men have changed. But it is what it was then. Here you can lay down your burden, if that is what you want.”
“What must I do?” Alder said.
Seppel led him to the south end of the great split in the ground, where it narrowed back together in fissured ridges of rock. He told him to lie facedown where he could gaze into the depth of darkness stretching down and down away from him. “Hold to the earth,” he said. “That is all you must do. Even if it moves, hold to it.”
Alder lay there staring down between the walls of stone. He felt rocks jabbing his chest and hip as he lay on them; he heard Seppel begin to chant in a high voice in words he knew were the Language of the Making; he felt the warmth of the sun across his shoulders, and smelled the carrion stink of the tannery. Then the breath of the cave blew up out of the depths with a hollow sharpness that took his own breath away and made his head spin. The darkness moved up towards him. The ground moved under him, rocked and shook, and he held on to it, hearing the high voice sing, breathing the breath of the earth. The darkness rose up and took him. He lost the sun.
When he came back, the sun was low in the west, a red ball in the haze over the western shores of the bay. He saw that. He saw Seppel sitting nearby on the ground, looking tired and forlorn, his black shadow long on the rocky ground among the long shadows of the rocks.
“There you are,” Onyx said.
Alder realised that he was lying on his back, his head on Onyx’s knees, a rock digging into his backbone. He sat up, dizzy, apologising.
They set off as soon as he could walk, for they had some miles to go and it was clear that neither he nor Seppel would be able to keep a fast pace. Full night had fallen when they came by Boatwright Street. Seppel bade them farewell, looking searchingly at Alder as they stood in the light from a tavern door nearby. “I did as you asked me,” he said, with that same unhappy look.
“I thank you for it,” Alder said, and put out his right hand to the wizard in the manner of the people of the En-lades. After a moment Seppel touched it with his hand; and so they parted.
Alder was so tired he could barely make his legs move. The sharp, strange taste of the air from the cave was still in his mouth and throat, making him feel light, light-headed, hollow. When at last they came to the palace, Onyx wanted to see him to his room, but Alder said he was well and only needed to rest.
He came into his room and Tug came dancing and tail-waving to greet him. “Ah, I don’t need you now,” Alder said, bending down to stroke the sleek grey back. Tears came into his eyes. It was only that he was very tired. He lay down on the bed, and the cat jumped up and curled up purring on his shoulder.
And he slept: black, blank sleep with no dream he could remember, no voice calling his name, no hill of dry grass, no dim wall of stones, nothing.
Walking in the gardens of the palace in the evening before they were to sail south, Tenar was heavyhearted and anxious. She did not want to be setting off to Roke, the Isle of the Wise, the Isle of the Wizards. (Accursed-sorcerers, a voice in her mind said in Kargish.) What had she to do there? What possible use could she be? She wanted to go home to Gont, to Ged. To her own house, her own work, her own dear man.
She had estranged Lebannen. She had lost him. He was polite, affable, and unforgiving.
How men feared women! she thought, walking among the late-flowering roses. Not as individuals, but women when they talked together, worked together, spoke up for one another—then men saw plots, cabals, constraints, traps being laid.
Of course they were right. Women were likely, as women, to take the next generations part, not this one’s; they wove the links men saw as chains, the bonds men saw as bondage. She and Seserakh were indeed in league against him and ready to betray him, if he truly was nothing unless he was independent. If he was only air and fire, no weight of earth to him, no patient water…
But that was not Lebannen so much as Tehanu. Unearthly, her Tehanu, the winged soul that had come to stay with her a while and was soon, she knew, to leave her. From fire to fire.
And Irian, with whom Tehanu would go. What had that bright, fierce creature to do with an old house that needed sweeping, an old man who needed looking after? How could Irian understand such things? What was it to her, a dragon, that a man should undertake his duty, marry, have children, wear the yoke of earth?
Seeing herself alone and useless among beings of high, inhuman destiny, Tenar gave in altogether to homesickness.
Homesickness not for Gont only. Why should she not be in league with Seserakh, who might be a princess as she herself had been a priestess, but who was not going to go flying off on fiery wings, being deeply and entirely a. woman of the earth? And she spoke Tenars own language! Tenar had dutifully tutored her in Hardic, had been delighted with her quickness to learn, and realised only now that the true delight had been just to speak Kargish with her, hearing and saying words that held in them all her lost childhood.
As she came to the walk that led to the fish ponds beneath the willows, she saw Alder. With him was a small boy. They were talking quietly, soberly. She was always glad to see Alder. She pitied him for the pain and fear he was in and honored his patience in bearing it. She liked his honest, handsome face, and his silver tongue. What was the harm in adding a grace note or two to ordinary speech? Ged had trusted him.
Pausing at a distance so as not to disturb the conversation, she saw him and the child kneel down on the path, looking into the bushes. Presently Alder’s little grey cat emerged from under a bush. It paid no attention to them, but set off across the grass, paw by paw, belly low and eyes alight, hunting a moth.
“You can let him stay out all night, if you like,” Alder said to the child. “He can’t stray or come to harm here. He has a great taste for the open air. But this is like all Havnor to him, you see, these great gardens. Or you can give him his freedom in the mornings. And then, if you like, he can sleep with you.”
“I would like that,” the boy said, shyly decisive.
“Then he needs his box of sand in your room, you know. And a bowl of drinking water, never to go dry.”
“And food.”
“Yes, indeed; once a day. Not too much of it. He’s a bit greedy. Inclined to think Segoy made the islands so that Tug could fill his belly.”
“Does he catch fish in the pond?” The cat was now near one of the carp pools, sitting on the grass looking about; the moth had flown.
“He likes to watch them.”
“I do too,” the boy said. They got up and walked together towards the pools.
Tenar was moved to tenderness. There was an innocence to Alder, but it was a man’s innocence, not childish. He should have had children of his own. He would have been a good father to them.
She thought of her own children, and of the little grandchildren—though Apple’s eldest, Pippin, was it possible? was Pippin about to be twelve? She would be named this year or next! Oh, it was time to go home. It was time to visit Middle Valley, ta
In the morning, the bright summer morning, they all went down from the palace to go aboard the Dolphin. The people of the City of Havnor made it a festival, swarming afoot in the streets and on the wharves, choking the canals with the little poled boats they called chips, dotting the great bay with sailboats and dinghies all flying bright flags; and flags and pennants flew from the towers of the great houses and the banner poles on bridges high and low. Passing among these cheerful crowds, Tenar thought of the day long ago she and Ged came sailing into Havnor, bringing home the Rune of Peace, Elfarran’s Ring. That Ring had been on her arm, and she had held it up so the silver would flash in the sunlight and the people could see it, and they had cheered and held out their arms to her as if they all wanted to embrace her. It made her smile to think of that. She was smiling as she went up the gangplank and bowed to Lebannen.
He greeted her with the traditional formality of a ship’s master: “Mistress Tenar, be welcome aboard.” She replied, moved by she knew not what impulse, “I thank you, son of Elfarran.”
He looked at her for a moment, startled by that name. But Tehanu followed close after her, and he repeated the formal greeting: “Mistress Tehanu, be welcome aboard.”
Tenar went on towards the prow of the ship, remembering a corner there near a capstan where a passenger could be out of the way of the hardworking sailors and yet see all that happened on the crowded deck and outside the ship too.
There was a commotion in the main street leading to the dock: the High Princess was arriving. Tenar saw with satisfaction that Lebannen, or perhaps his majordomo, had arranged for the princess’s arrival to be fittingly magnificent. Mounted escorts opened a way through the crowds, their horses snorting and clattering in fine style. Tall red plumes, such as Kargish warriors wore on their helmets, waved from the top of the closed, gilt-bedizened carriage that had brought the princess across the city and on the headstalls of the four grey horses that drew it. A band of musicians waiting on the waterside struck up with trumpet, tambour, and tambourine. And the people, discovering that they had a princess to cheer and peer at, cheered loudly, and pressed as close as the horsemen and foot guards would allow them, gaping and full of praises and somewhat random greetings. “Hail the Queen of the Kargs!” some of them shouted, and others, “She ain’t,” and others, “Look at em all in red, fine as rubies, which one is her?” and others, “Long live the Princess!”
Tenar saw Seserakh—veiled of course from hat to foot, but unmistakable by her height and bearing—descend from the carriage and sail, stately as a ship herself, towards the gangplank. Two of her shorter-veiled attendants trotted close behind her, followed by Lady Opal of Ilien. Tenar’s heart sank. Lebannen had decreed that no servants or followers were to be taken on this journey. It was not a cruise or pleasure trip, he had said sternly, and those aboard must have good reason to be aboard. Had Seserakh not understood that? Or did she so cling to her silly countrywomen that she meant to defy the king? That would be a most unfortunate beginning of the voyage.
But at the foot of the gangplank the gold-rippling red cylinder stopped and turned. It put forth hands, gold-skinned hands shining with gold rings. The princess embraced her handmaidens, clearly bidding them farewell. She also embraced Lady Opal in the approved stately manner of royalty and nobility in public. Then Lady Opal herded the handmaidens back towards the carriage, while the princess turned again to the gangplank.
There was a pause. Tenar could see that featureless column of red and gold take a deep breath. It drew itself up taller.
It proceeded up the gangplank, slowly, for the tide had been rising and the angle was steep, but with an unhesitant dignity that kept the crowds ashore silent, fascinated, watching.
It attained the deck and stopped there, facing the king.
“High Princess of the Kargad Lands, be welcome aboard,” Lebannen said in a ringing voice. At that the crowds burst out—”Hurrah for the Princess! Long live the Queen! Well walked, Reddy!”
Lebannen said something to the princess which the cheering made inaudible to others. The red column turned to the crowd on the waterside and bowed, stiff-backed but gracious.
Tehanu had waited for her near where the king stood, and now came forward and spoke to her and led her to the aft cabin of the ship, where the heavy, soft-flowing red and golden veils disappeared. The crowd cheered and called more wildly than ever. “Come back, Princess! Where’s Reddy? Where’s our lady? Where’s the Queen?”
Tenar looked down the length of the ship at the king. Through her misgivings and heaviness of heart, unruly laughter welled up in her. She thought, Poor boy, what will you do now? They’ve fallen in love with her the first chance they got to see her, even though they can’t see her… Oh, Lebannen, we’re all in league against you!
dolphin was a fair-sized ship, fitted out to carry a king in some state and comfort; but first and foremost she was made to sail, to fly with the wind, to take him where he needed to go as quickly as could be. Accommodations were cramped enough when it was only the crew and officers, the king and a few companions aboard. On this voyage to Roke, accommodations were jammed. The crew, to be sure, were in no more than usual discomfort, sleeping down in the three-foot-high kennel of the foreward hold; but the officers had to share one wretched black closet under the forecastle. As for the passengers, all four women were in what was normally the king’s cabin, which ran the narrow width of the sterncastle of the ship, while the cabin beneath it, usually occupied by the ship’s master and one or two other officers, was shared by the king, the two wizards, the sorcerer, and Tosla. The probability of misery and bad temper was, Tenar thought, limitless. The first and most urgent probability, however, was that the High Princess was going to be sick. They were sailing down the Great Bay with the mildest following wind, the water calm, the ship gliding along like a swan on a pond; but Seserakh cowered on her bunk, crying out in despair whenever she looked out through her veils and caught sight of the sunny, peaceful vista of unexcited water, the mild white wake of the ship, through the broad stern windows. “It will go up and down,” she moaned in Kargish.
“It is not going up and down at all,” Tenar said. “Use your head, princess!”
“It is my stomach not my head,” Seserakh whimpered.
“Nobody could possibly be seasick in this weather. You are simply afraid.”
“Mother,” Tehanu protested, understanding the tone if not the words. “Don’t scold her. It’s miserable to be sick.”
“She is not sick!” Tenar said. She was absolutely convinced of the truth of what she said. “Seserakh, you are not sick. You are afraid of being sick. Get hold of yourself. Come out on deck. Fresh air will make all the difference. Fresh air and courage.”
“Oh my friend,” Seserakh murmured in Hardic. “Make me courage!”
Tenar was a little taken aback. “You have to make it yourself, princess,” she said. Then, relenting, “Come on, just try it out on deck for a minute. Tehanu, see if you can persuade her. Think what she’ll suffer if we do meet some weather!”
Between them they got Seserakh to her feet and into her cylinder of red veiling, without which she could not of course appear before the eyes of men; they coaxed and wheedled her to creep out of the cabin, onto the bit of deck to the side of it, in the shade, where they could all sit in a row on the bone-white, impeccable decking and look out at the blue and shining sea.
Seserakh parted her veils enough that she could
Tenar and Tehanu talked a little, pointing out ships that passed, birds, an island. “It’s lovely. I forgot how I like to sail!” Tenar said.
“I like it if I can forget the water,” said Tehanu. “It’s like flying.”
“Ah, you dragons,” Tenar said.
It was spoken lightly, but it was not lightly said. It was the first time she had ever said anything of the kind to her adopted daughter. She was aware that Tehanu had turned her head to look at her with her seeing eye. Tenar’s heart beat heavily. “Air and fire,” she said.
Tehanu said nothing. But her hand, the brown slender hand, not the claw, reached out and took hold of Tenar’s hand and held it tightly.
“I don’t know what I am, mother,” she whispered in her voice that was seldom more than a whisper.
“I do,” Tenar said. And her heart beat heavier and harder than before.
“I’m not like Irian,” Tehanu said. She was trying to comfort her mother, to reassure her, but there was longing in her voice, yearning jealousy, profound desire.
“Wait, wait and find out,” her mother replied, finding it hard to speak. “You’ll know what to do… what you are… when the time comes.”
They were talking so softly that the princess could not hear what they said, if she could understand it. They had forgotten her. But she had caught the name Irian, and parting her veils with her long hands and turning to them, her eyes looking out bright from the warm red shadow, she asked, “Irian, she is?”
“Somewhere forward—up there—” Tenar waved at the rest of the ship.