The Farthest Shore Part 6

"Aye," said Sparrowhawk again, accepting Arren's statement and pondering it for some time. "I'm glad," he said at last, "that you can think for me, lad... I feel tired and stupid. I've been sick at heart since this morning, since we talked to her who was Akaren. I do not like waste and destruction. I do not want an enemy. If I must have an enemy, I do not want to seek him, and find him, and meet him... If one must hunt, the prize should be a treasure, not a detestable thing."

"An enemy, my lord?" said Arren.

Sparrowhawk nodded.

"When she talked about the Great Man, the King of Shadows-?"

Sparrowhawk nodded again. "I think so," he said. "I think we must come not only to a place, but to a person. This is evil, evil, what pa.s.ses on this island: this loss of craft and pride, this joylessness, this waste. This is the work of an evil will. But a will not even bent here, not even noticing Akaren or Lorbanery. The track we hunt is a track of wreckage, as if we followed a runaway cart down a mountainside and watched it set off an avalanche."

"Could she -Akaren- tell you more about this enemy- who he is and where he is, or what he is?"

"Not now, lad," the mage said in a soft but rather bleak voice. "No doubt she could have. In her madness there was still wizardry. Indeed her madness was her wizardry. But I could not hold her to answer me. She was in too much pain."

And he walked on with his head somewhat hunched between his shoulders, as if himself enduring, and longing to avoid, some pain.

Arren turned, hearing a scuffle of feet behind them on the road. A man was running after them, a good way off but catching up fast. The dust of the road and his long, wiry hair made aureoles of red about him in the westering light, and his long shadow hopped fantastically along the trunks and aisles of the orchards by the road. "Listen!" he shouted. "Stop! I found it! I found it!"

He caught up with them in a rush. Arren's hand went first to the air where his sword hilt might have been, then to the air where his lost knife had been, and then made itself into a fist, all in half a second. He scowled and moved forward. The man was a full head taller than Sparrowhawk, and broadshouldered: a panting, raving, wild-eyed madman. "I found it!" he kept saying, while Arren, trying to dominate him by a stern, threatening voice and att.i.tude, said, "What do you want?" The man tried to get around him, to Sparrowhawk; Arren stepped in front of him again.

"You are the Dyer of Lorbanery," Sparrowhawk said.

Then Arren felt he had been a fool, trying to protect his companion; and he stepped aside, out of the way. For at six words from the mage, the madman stopped his panting and the clutching gesture of his big, stained hands; his eyes grew quieter; he nodded his head.

"I was the dyer," he said, "but now I can't dye." Then he looked askance at Sparrowhawk and grinned; he shook his head with its reddish, dusty bush of hair. "You took away my mother's name," he said. "Now I don't know her, and she doesn't know me. She loves me well enough still, but she's left me. She's dead."

Arren's heart contracted, but he saw that Sparrowhawk merely shook his head a little. "No, no," he said, "she's not dead."

"But she will be. She'll die."

"Aye. That's a consequence of being alive," the mage said. The Dyer seemed to puzzle this over for a minute, and then came right up to Sparrowhawk, seized his shoulders, and bent over him. He moved so fast that Arren could not prevent him, but Arren did come up very close, and so heard his whisper, "I found the hole in the darkness. The King was standing there. He watches it; he rules it. He had a little flame, a little candle in his hand. He blew on it and it went out. Then he blew on it again and it burned! It burned!"

Sparrowhawk made no protest at being held and whispered at. He simply asked, "Where were you when you saw that?"

"In bed."

"Dreaming?"

"No."

"Across the wall?"

"No," the Dyer said, in a suddenly sober tone, and as if uncomfortable. He let the mage go, and took a step back from him. "No, I- I don't know where it is. I found it. But I don't know where."

"That's what I'd like to know," said Sparrowhawk.

"I can help you."

"How?"

"You have a boat. You came here in it and you're going on. Are you going on west? That's the way. The way to the place where he comes out. There has to be a place, a place here, because he's alive- not just the spirits, the ghosts, that come over the wall, not like that, -you can't bring anything but souls over the wall, but this is the body; this is the flesh immortal. I saw the flame rise in the darkness at his breath, the flame that was out. I saw that." The man's face was transfigured, a wild beauty in it in the long, red-gold light. "I know that he has overcome death. I know it. I gave my wizardry to know it. I was a wizard once! And you know it, and you are going there. Take me with you."

The same light shone on Sparrowhawk's face, but left it unmoved and harsh. "I am trying to go there," he said.

"Let me go with you!"

Sparrowhawk nodded briefly. "If you're ready when we sail," he said, as coldly as before.

The Dyer backed away from him another step and stood watching him, the exaltation in his face clouding slowly over until it was replaced by a strange, heavy look; it was as if reasoning thought were laboring to break through the storm of words and feelings and visions that confused him. Finally he turned around without a word and began to run back down the road, into the haze of dust that had not yet settled on his tracks. Arren drew a long breath of relief.

Sparrowhawk also sighed, though not as if his heart were any easier. "Well," he said. "Strange roads have strange guides. Let's go on."

Arren fell into step beside him. "You won't take him with us?" he asked.

"That's up to him."

With a flash of anger Arren thought: It's up to me, also. But he did not say anything, and they went on together in silence.

They were not well-received on their return to Sosara. Everything on a little island like Lorbanery is known as soon as it is done, and no doubt they had been seen turning aside to the Dyers' House and talking to the madman on the road. The innkeeper served them uncivilly, and his wife acted scared to death of them. In the evening when the men of the village came to sit under the eaves of the inn, they made much display of not speaking to the foreigners and being very witty and merry among themselves. But they had not much wit to pa.s.s around and soon ran short of jollity. They all sat in silence for a long time, and at last the mayor said to Sparrowhawk, "Did you find your blue rocks?"

"I found some blue rocks," Sparrowhawk replied politely.

"Sopli showed you where to find 'em, no doubt."

Ha, ha ha, went the other men, at this masterstroke of irony.

"Sopli would be the red-haired man?"

"The madman. You called on his mother in the morning."

"I was looking for a wizard," said the wizard.

The skinny man, who sat nearest him, spat into the darkness. "What for?"

"I thought I might find out about what I'm looking for."

"People come to Lorbanery for silk," the mayor said. "They don't come for stones. They don't come for charms. Or arm-wavings and jibber-jabber and sorcerers' tricks. Honest folk live here and do honest work."

"That's right. He's right," said others.

"And we don't want any other sort here, people from foreign parts snooping about and prying into our business."

"That's right. He's right," came the chorus.

"If there was any sorcerer around that wasn't crazy, we'd give him an honest job in the sheds, but they don't know how to do honest work."

"They might, if there were any to do," said Sparrowhawk. "Your sheds are empty, the orchards are untended, the silk in your warehouses was all woven years ago. What do you do, here in Lorbanery?"

"We look after our own business," the mayor snapped, but the skinny man broke in excitedly, "Why don't the ships come, tell us that! What are they doing in Hort Town? Is it because our work's been shoddy?-" He was interrupted by angry denials. They shouted at one another, jumped to their feet, the mayor shook his fist in Sparrowhawk's face, another drew a knife. Their mood had gone wild. Arren was on his feet at once. He looked at Sparrowhawk, expecting to see him stand up in the sudden radiance of the magelight and strike them dumb with his revealed power. But he did not. He sat there and looked from one to another and listened to their menaces. And gradually they fell quiet, as if they could not keep up anger any more than they could keep up merriment. The knife was sheathed; the threats turned to sneers. They began to go off like dogs leaving a dog-fight, some strutting and some sneaking.

When the two were left alone Sparrowhawk got up, went inside the inn, and took a long draft of water from the jug beside the door. "Come, lad," he said. "I've had enough of this."

"To the boat?"

"Aye." He put down two trade-counters of silver on the windowsill to pay for their lodging, and hoisted up their light pack of clothing. Arren was tired and sleepy, but he looked around the room of the inn, stuffy and bleak, and all a-flitter up in the rafters with the restless bats; he thought of last night in that room and followed Sparrowhawk willingly. He thought, too, as they went down Sosara's one, dark street, that going now they would give the madman Sopli the slip. But when they came to the harbor he was waiting for them on the pier.

"There you are," said the mage. "Get aboard, if you want to come."

Without a word, Sopli got down into the boat and crouched beside the mast, like a big, unkempt dog. At this Arren rebelled "My lord!" he said. Sparrowhawk turned; they stood face to face on the pier above the boat.

"They are all mad on this island, but I thought you were not. Why do you take him?"

"As a guide."

"A guide -to more madness? To death by drowning, or a knife in the back?"

"To death, but by what road I do not know."

Arren spoke with heat, and though Sparrowhawk answered quietly, there was something of a fierce note in his voice. He was not used to being questioned. But ever since Arren had tried to protect him from the madman on the road that afternoon and had seen how vain and unneeded his protection was, he had felt a bitterness, and all that uprush of devotion he had felt in the morning was spoilt and wasted. He was unable to protect Sparrowhawk; he was not permitted to make any decisions; he was unable, or was not permitted, even to understand the nature of their quest. He was merely dragged along on it, useless as a child. But he was not a child.

"I would not quarrel with you, my lord," he said as coldly as he could. "But this- this is beyond reason!"

"It is beyond all reason. We go where reason will not take us. Will you come, or will you not?"

Tears of anger sprang into Arren's eyes. "I said I would come with you and serve you. I do not break my word."

"That is well," the mage said grimly and made as if to turn away. Then he faced Arren again. "I need you, Arren; and you need me. For I will tell you now that I believe this way we go is yours to follow, not out of obedience or loyalty to me, but because it was yours to follow before you ever saw me; before you ever set foot on Roke; before you sailed from Enlad. You cannot turn back from it."

His voice had not softened. Arren answered him as grimly, "How should I turn back, with no boat, here on the edge of the world?"

"This the edge of the world? No, that is farther on. We may yet come to it."

Arren nodded once and swung down into the boat. Sparrowhawk loosed the line and spoke a light wind into the sail. Once away from the looming, empty docks of Lorbanery the air blew cool and clean out of the dark north, and the moon broke silver from the sleek sea before them and rode upon their left as they turned southward to coast the isle.

The Madman

The madman, the Dyer of Lorbanery, sat huddled up against the mast, his arms wrapped around his knees and his head hunched down. His ma.s.s of wiry hair looked black in the moonlight. Sparrowhawk had rolled himself up in a blanket and gone to sleep in the stern of the boat. Neither of them stirred. Arren sat up in the prow; he had sworn to himself to watch all night. If the mage chose to a.s.sume that their lunatic pa.s.senger would not a.s.sault him or Arren in the night, that was all very well for him; Arren, however, would make his own a.s.sumptions and undertake his own responsibilities.

But the night was very long and very calm. The moonlight poured down, changeless. Huddled by the mast, Sopli snored, long, soft snores. Softly the boat moved onward; softly Arren slid into sleep. He started awake once and saw the moon scarcely higher; he abandoned his selfrighteous guardianship, made himself comfortable, and went to sleep.

He dreamt again, as he seemed always to do on this voyage, and at first the dreams were fragmentary but strangely sweet and rea.s.suring. In place of Lookfar's mast a tree grew, with great, arching arms of foliage; swans guided the boat, swooping on strong wings before it; far ahead, over the beryl green sea, shone a city of white towers. Then he was in one of those towers, climbing the steps which spiralled upward, running up them lightly and eagerly. These scenes changed and recurred and led into others, which pa.s.sed without trace; but suddenly he was in the dreaded, dull twilight on the moors, and the horror grew in him until he could not breathe.

But he went forward, because he must go forward. After a long time he realized that to go forward here was to go in a circle and come round on one's own tracks again. Yet he must get out, get away. It grew more and more urgent. He began to run. As he ran, the circles narrowed in and the ground began to slant. He was running in the darkening gloom, faster and faster, around the sinking inner lip of a pit, an enormous whirlpool sucking down to darkness: and as he knew this, his foot slipped and he fell.

"What's the matter, Arren?"

Sparrowhawk spoke to him from the stern. Grey dawn held the sky and sea still.

"Nothing."

"The nightmare?"

"Nothing."

Arren was cold, and his right arm ached from having been cramped under him. He shut his eyes against the growing light and thought, "He hints of this and hints of that, but he will never tell me clearly where we're going, or why, or why I should go there. And now he drags this madman with us. Which is maddest, the lunatic or I, for coming with him? The two of them may understand each other; it's the wizards who are mad now, Sopli said. I could have been at home by now, at home in the Hall in Berila, in my room with the carven walls and the red rugs on the floor and a fire in the hearth, waking up to go out a-hawking with my father. Why did I come with him? Why did he bring me? Because it's my way to go, he says, but that's wizard's talk, making things seem great by great words. But the meaning of the words is always somewhere else. If I have any way to go, it's to my home, not wandering senselessly across the Reaches. I have duties at home and am shirking them. If he really thinks there is some enemy of wizardry at work, why did he come alone, with me? He might have brought another mage to help him- a hundred of them. He could have brought an army of warriors, a fleet of ships. Is this how a great peril is met, by sending out an old man and a boy in a boat? This is mere folly. He is mad himself; it is as he said, he seeks death. He seeks death, and wants to take me with him. But I am not mad and not old; I will not die; I will not go with him."

He sat up on his elbow, looking forward. The moon that had risen before them as they left Sosara Bay was again before them, sinking. Behind, in the east, day came wan and dull. There were no clouds, but a faint, sickly overcast. Later in the day the sun grew hot, but it shone veiled, without splendor.

All day long they coasted Lorbanery, low and green to their right hand. A light wind blew off the land and filled their sail. Toward evening they pa.s.sed a long last cape; the breeze died down. Sparrowhawk spoke the magewind into the sail, and like a falcon loosed from the wrist, Lookfar started and fled forward eagerly, putting the Isle of Silk behind.

Sopli the Dyer had cowered in the same place all day, evidently afraid of the boat and afraid of the sea, seasick and wretched. He spoke now, hoa.r.s.ely. "Are we going west?"

The sunset was right in his face; but Sparrowhawk, patient with his stupidest questions, nodded.

"To Obehol?"

"Obehol lies west of Lorbanery."

"A long way west. Maybe the place is there."

"What is it like, the place?"

"How do I know? How could I see it? It's not on Lorbanery! I hunted for it for years, four years, five years, in the dark, at night, shutting my eyes, always with him calling Come, come, but I couldn't come. I'm no lord of wizards who can tell the ways in the dark. But there's a place to come to in the light, under the sun too. That's what Mildi and my mother wouldn't understand. They kept looking in the dark. Then old Mildi died, and my mother lost her mind. She forgot the spells we use in the dyeing, and it affected her mind. She wanted to die, but I told her to wait. Wait till I find the place. There must be a place. If the dead can come back to life in the world, there must be a place in the world where it happens."

"Are the dead coming back to life?"

"I thought you knew such things," Sopli said after a pause, looking askance at Sparrowhawk.

"I seek to know them."

Sopli said nothing. The mage suddenly looked at him, a direct, compelling gaze, though his tone was gentle: "Are you looking for a way to live forever, Sopli?"

Sopli returned his gaze for a moment; then he hid his s.h.a.ggy, brownish-red head in his arms, locking his hands across his ankles, and rocked himself a little back and forth. It seemed that when he was frightened he took this position; and when he was in it, he would not speak or take any notice of what was said. Arren turned away from him in despair and disgust. How could they go on, with Sopli, for days or weeks, in an eighteen-foot boat? It was like sharing a body with a diseased soul...

Sparrowhawk came up beside Arren in the prow and knelt with one knee on the thwart, looking into the sallow evening. He said, "The man has a gentle spirit."

Arren did not answer this. He asked coldly, "What is Obehol? I never heard the name."

"I know its name and place on the charts; no more... Look there: the companions of Gobardon!"

The great topaz-colored star was higher in the south now, and beneath it, just clearing the dim sea, shone a white star to the left and a bluish-white one to the right, forming a triangle.

"Have they names?"