Chapter 6 Chapter 6 Getting Bad

More than a month has passed since the summer solstice, and the days are short and the nights are still long in Gaoling to the west.Therru came home very late that day, too tired to eat after following Aunt Moss all day collecting herbs.Tenar put her to bed and sang to her.When the child is too tired to sleep, he curls up on the bed like a paralyzed little animal, staring at hallucinations until he is half asleep, half awake, oblivious to the outside world like a nightmare.Tenar found that this could be avoided by simply holding her and singing to her to sleep.After singing the song she learned as a peasant woman in the Midvale, she sang the Karge chant that she learned earlier than when she was a child priestess in the tomb of Atuan. His nameless power and empty throne, now buried in the crumbling dust of earthquakes and avalanches.She feels that the songs have no magic power, and she likes to sing in her mother tongue, although she doesn't know what songs Etuan's mother sang for her children, and what songs her mother sang for her.

At last Therru fell into a deep sleep.Tenar lifted her gently from her arms to the bed, and waited a moment to make sure she was still fast asleep.After she looked around to make sure she was alone, she felt guilty, but as if performing a joyous ceremony, she quickly covered the child's face with her slender and pale hands, blocking the eyes that had been eaten away by the fire, leaving only lumpy, bald scars with cheeks.At her touch everything faded away, the skin healed whole and became the round, soft, sleeping face of a child, as if her touch had recreated reality. She raised her palm gently and reluctantly, and saw the irremediable loss, the wound that would never heal.

She leaned over to kiss the scar, stood up quietly, and walked out of the house. The sun was setting in a vast pearly mist, and there was no one around, the sparrowhawk probably in the woods.He began to visit Ogion's grave, and spent hours in silence under the arbor tree.When his strength grew stronger, he began to roam the paths Ogion loved.He evidently had no taste for food, and Tenar had to ask him to eat; he refused company and preferred to be alone.Therru was as silent as he was, willing to follow him to the ends of the earth without disturbing him, but he was restless, and in the end he would ask the child to go home, and go farther on his own, to destinations Tenar didn't know.He came in late, fell asleep, and often left the house before the baby and her woke up.She would prepare bread and slices of meat for him to take.

She watched him now along the prairie path, the long and arduous walk she had taken to help Ogion the last time.He came through the bright air, walked through the wind-blown grass and leaves, and walked steadily, locked in his stubborn sorrow like a stone. "Will you be near the house?" she asked at a distance. "Therru is asleep. I want to go for a walk." "Yes, let's go," he said.She wandered away, thinking about the imperatives that men ignored and women controlled: someone had to be near the sleeping child; one man's freedom meant another's unfreedom—unless some ever-changing dynamic was achieved, such as marching The body, like her now, takes turns walking with both feet, one in front and one in back, performing excellent skills... Then, the gradually darkening sky and the soft persistence of the sea breeze replaced thoughts.She continued to walk without distraction until she reached the sandstone of the cliff, and finally stopped, watching the sun disappear into the peaceful rose-colored mist

Kneeling, her eyes wandering, her fingertips groping, she found a long, shallow, vague carving on the rock, scraping all the way to the edge of the cliff: it was the mark of Kairazen's tail.She chased the painting with her fingers again and again, looking at the twilight chasm, fantasizing.She said it once.This time the name was not a flame in her mouth, but a soft hiss from her lips: "Kaylasin..." She looked up to the east.The top of Gont Mountain jutting above the forest was red, reflecting the fading light below.As she watched, the color faded.She turned her head away, and when she looked back again, the mountain peak was already ashes and disappeared, and the dense forest on the hillside was dark.

She waited for the night star to appear, and as it shone above the mist, she walked home slowly. Home is not home.Why was she at Ogion's house, tending Ogion's goats and onions, instead of at her own farm, tending her orchard and herds of sheep? "Wait," he said, and she waited, and the dragon came, and Ged was almost healed.She has fulfilled her mission and taken care of the house.She is no longer needed, it is time to leave. But she couldn't imagine leaving this high cliff, this eagle's nest, and going back to the lowlands again, the comfortable farmland, the windless interior.Every time the thought made her feel low and gloomy.What about the dream she had under the small west window?What about finding her dragon here?

The door remained open, allowing light and air to enter freely.There was no light or fire, and the Sparrowhawk sat on a low chair by the clean fire.He often sits there.That was, she thought, the seat he had sat in when he was a boy, during his brief apprenticeship with Ogion.It had been her seat that winter, too, when she was a student of Ogion. He watched her enter the room, but his eyes did not fall on the door, but on the right, in the dark corner behind the door.Ogion's wand stood, a heavy oak with a polished handle, as tall as its master.Therru laid aside the hazel and alder sticks she had cut down on the way to Reaper.

Tenar thought, where is his staff, his purple staff, which Ogion gave him?And also thinking, why am I just now thinking of this? Kennei was very dark and seemed a bit stuffy.She feels oppressed.She had wanted him to stay and talk to her, but now that he was sitting there, she had nothing to say to him, and vice versa. "I'm thinking," she said at last, straightening the four saucers on the oak sideboard, "that it's time for me to go back to my farm." He said nothing, probably nodded, but she turned her back on him. She was suddenly tired and paralyzed, and wanted to go to bed, but he was sitting in the front half of the house, and the room was not completely dark, so she couldn't undress in front of him.Shame made her angry, and she was about to ask him out for a while, when he hesitated, he cleared his throat and spoke.

"Book, Ogion's book, rune book and two books of wisdom, will you take it with you?" "I take it away?" "You are his last student." She went to the fire and sat facing him in Ogion's three-legged chair. "I learned to write Hittite runes, but probably forgot most of them. He taught me some of Draconic, and I remember some of them, but not the rest. I didn't become an Adept or a Wizard, and I got married, you know? Ooh Will Ji An leave his wisdom to a peasant woman?" After a while of silence, he said expressionlessly, "He must have left the book for someone, right?"

"Of course it's you." Sparrowhawk said nothing. "My friend, you are his last apprentice and also his pride. He didn't say it clearly, but of course the book belongs to you." "What shall I do with them?" She stared at him through the twilight.The west window is dimly lit at the bottom of the room.The stubborn, relentless, unidentified anger in his voice provoked her own. "You are an archmage, do you still want to ask me? Ged, why do you make me look more stupid than a fool?" He stood up immediately, his voice trembling. "But don't you...you can't see...it's over...not here!"

She sat, staring at him, trying to see his face clearly. "I have no power, nothing left. I give... give... my all. To close... so... so it's done, it's over." She wanted to deny everything he said, but couldn't. "It's like pouring out a little water," he said. "Pouring out a glass of water on the sand. In dry land. I have to, but I can't quench my thirst now. A glass of water in the desert, then, now, can change What? Has the desert disappeared? Ah! Listen... It whispered to me from behind that door: Listen! Listen! I walked into that dry land when I was young, and there I was face to face with it, and I became It, I united with my own death, it gave me life. Water, water of life. I was a fountain, welling spring, flowing, giving. But the spring water was there not to flow. All I had at last was a cup of water , and I had to dump it on the sand, on the dry creek, on the rocks in the dark. So it's gone. It's over. It's done." She knew enough, from Ogion and Ged himself, that she knew the place he spoke of, though he described sights, which were not appearances, but the realities he knew.But she also knew she had to deny everything he said, even if it was true. "You didn't give yourself time, Ged," she said. "It's a long journey from the dead to life, even on the back of a dragon. It will take time. Time, and stillness, silence, peace. You were wounded, But it will heal." He didn't speak for a long time, just stood there.She thought she was right and gave him some comfort, but he finally spoke again. "Like that kid?" This sentence is like an extremely sharp knife, she can't even feel the moment of piercing. "I don't know why you adopted her," he said in the same soft flat voice, "knowing that she'll never heal again, knowing what her life will be like. I think these are the times we're living through—dark times , the hour of decay, the hour of the end. I think you adopted her for the same reason I went to face my enemies, because that's the only thing you can do. Therefore, we must live in this world with the spoils of defeating evil New age. You have the burnt child and I have nothing." Despair spoke peacefully in a quiet voice. Tenar turned to look at the witch's staff standing in the dark to the right of the door, but it had no light, and was utterly dark from the inside out.Through the wide-open door frame, two stars lighted up tall and faintly.She looked at them and wondered what star it was.She got up and groped past the dining table to the door in the dark.The mist rose, revealing only a few stars, one of which she saw from inside the door was the white summer star in Etuan, which she called "Tehanu" in her mother tongue.She didn't know how the people here called Tehanu in the Hittite language, or what his real name was, what the dragon called him by.She only knew what her mother would call it: Tehanu, Tehanu; Tenar, Tenar... "Ged," she asked from the door, her back turned into the house, "who brought you up?" He walked to her side and looked out at the foggy sea and sky, the stars, and the black mountains above. "There was no one," he said. "My mother died when I was a baby; there were brothers, but I don't remember them; my father was a coppersmith; and my aunt, who was the witch of Ten Youngs." "Like Aunt Moss," said Tenar. "And younger. She has some wizardry." "what is her name?" He is silent. "I don't remember." He said slowly. After a while he said, "She taught me some real names: falcon, peregrine, eagle, osprey, goshawk, sparrowhawk..." "What do you call that star? The tall, white one up there." "Swan Heart," he said, looking up. "In Ten Yang Village, people call it 'Arrow Star'." But he didn't say its name in the language of creation, nor did he say the real name of falcon, falcon, sparrowhawk, etc. that the witch taught him. "What I just... in the room... said was wrong." He said softly, "I shouldn't have said anything. Forgive me." "If you don't want to talk, what else can I do but leave you?" She turned to him. "Why do you only think about yourself? Always yourself? Get out for a while," she told him angrily. "I'm going to get dressed and go to bed." He went out with a flustered murmur of apology, and she went to the alcove, took off her coat and went to bed, burying her face in the sweet warmth of Therru's silky hair at the nape of her neck. "Knowing what her life is going to be..." Her anger at him, her stupid denial of the truth of everything he said, came from disappointment.Though Lark had said dozens of times that nothing could be done, she still hoped that Tenar would heal the burn; and though Tenar kept saying that even Ogion could do nothing, she still hoped that Ged would heal Therru and lay his hand on the scar , and then everything will be complete, the blind eyes will shine, the withered hands will be soft, the ruined life will be complete. "Knowing what her life is going to be..." A parted face, a gesture that banishes evil, fear and curiosity, sticky pity and the threat of prying eyes, as hurt begets hurt... Never a man's arms, never a man to embrace her, none but Tenar anyone.He was right, the child should have died then, she should have died.They should let her go to the dry land, she, Lark and Ivy, meddling old woman: soft-hearted and cruel.He's right, he's always right.But those men who used her for their needs and pleasures, those women who let her be used-they should have knocked her unconscious, pushed her into the fire and burned her to death, but they didn't do it thoroughly enough, and finally relented, leaving her in her body. Under the spark of life.They are doing it wrong.And she, Tenar, was wrong in everything she did.She was given to the dark powers as a child, and was devoured by them, and people let her be devoured.Did she think that by crossing oceans, learning other languages, becoming a man's wife, mothering children, simply living her life, she could be more than she was?No longer their servants, their food, at their disposal for their needs and pleasure?She is destroyed, and she calls the destroyed to her side, a part of her own destruction, her own evil husk. A child's hair is fine, warm and sweet.She nestled in the warmth of Tenar's arms and dreamed.How could she be wrong?She was wronged and never made up for, but she was right.Not lost, not lost, not lost.Tenar held her to sleep, and let the light of the dream fill her mind: the bright air, the name of the dragon, the name of the stars, the heart of the swan, the star of arrows, Tehanu. She combed black goat hides for a fine underfur that could be spun into wool and had weavers make cloth: the silky cashmere of Gont.The old goat has been combed no less than a thousand times before, and he likes it very much, so he clings tightly to let the comb teeth drag and pull.The gray-black fluff from the combing turned into fluffy, dirty clouds, which Tenar stuffed into the mesh bag at last.She brushed the knotted bangs from the goat's ears to thank him, and patted the goat's round belly in a friendly way. "Ba—" the goat cried, and ran away.Tenar came out of the paddock to the house, and glanced over the meadow to make sure Therrue was still playing there. Moss taught the child to weave straw baskets. Although the crippled hands were very inflexible, they finally got the knack.She sat in the prairie with her unfinished work on her lap, but she didn't do anything, she watched the sparrowhawk. He was standing some distance away, close to the edge of the cliff, with his back to them, not knowing that he was being watched, for he was looking at a bird, a young kestrel, which was eyeing a small game it had found in the grass.It stood still in the air and flapped its wings, trying to drive out the field mouse or mouse, so that it would flee back to its nest in fright.The man gazes at the bird with equal concentration and hunger.He slowly raised his right hand, about forearm height, and then seemed to say something.But his voice was blown away by the wind, and the kestrel turned around, let out a high-pitched, piercing, and sharp cry, and flew high into the forest. The man lowered his arms and stood still, looking at the bird.Neither the child nor the woman moved.Only the birds fly high and leave freely. "He came to me as a falcon, as a peregrine," said Ogion by the fire one winter's night.He told her about the Transfiguration Charm, about shapeshifting, about the transformation of the mage Baoji into a bear. "He flew to me from the northwest and landed on my wrist. I took him to the fire and he couldn't speak. Because I knew him, I was able to help him take off his falcon form and become a man again. But inside he always Part of it was a hawk. His village called him a sparrowhawk, because the wild falcon would listen to him and come to him. Who are we? What does it mean to be human? Before he had his real name, his wit, his power, The eagle is within him. So is the human, so is the mage, and more... He is beyond us to name. And so are all." The girl who sits by the hearth looking at the fire listens, sees the falcon; sees the man, sees the birds come to him, listens to his words, and comes with flapping wings and talons as he names them Take his arm; see yourself a falcon, a wild bird.