The Farthest Shore Read Online Free PDF Page A

also, so that he had time to recover himself. On his left was the
     Doorkeeper, and on his right a grey-haired man with a kindly look, who said to him at
     last, “We are countrymen, Prince Arren. I was born in eastern Enlad, by the Forest
     of Aol.”
    “I have hunted in that forest,” Arren replied, and they spoke
     together a little of the woods and towns of the Isle of the Myths, so that Arren was
     comforted by the memory of his home.
    When the meal was done, they drew together once morebefore the hearth, some sitting and some standing, and there was a little
     silence.
    “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.”
    “That we resolved nothing,” said the Master Herbal, a stocky,
     dark-skinned man with calm eyes, “is itself a judgment. In the Grove are patterns
     found; but we found nothing there but argument.”
    “Only because we could not see the pattern plain,” said the
     grey-haired mage of Enlad, the Master Changer. “We do not know enough. Rumors from
     Wathort; news from Enlad. Strange news, and should be looked to. But to raise a great
     fear on so little a foundation is unneedful. Our power is not threatened only because a
     few sorcerers have forgotten their spells.”
    “So say I,” said a lean, keen-eyed man, the Master Windkey.
     “Have we not all our powers? Do not the trees of the Grove grow and put forth
     leaves? Do not the storms of heaven obey our word? Who can fear for the art of wizardry,
     which is the oldest of the arts of man?”
    “No man,” said the Master Summoner, deep-voiced and tall,
     young, with a dark and noble face, “no man, no power, can bind the action of
     wizardry or still the words of power. For they are the very words of the Making, and one
     who could silence them could unmake the world.”
    “Aye, and one who could do that would not be on
     Wathort or Narveduen,” said the Changer. “He would be here at the gates of
     Roke, and the end of the world would be at hand! We’ve not come to that pass
     yet.”
    “Yet there is something wrong,” said another, and they looked
     at him: deep-chested, solid as an oaken cask, he sat by the fire, and the voice came
     from him soft and true as the note of a great bell. He was the Master Chanter.
     “Where is the king that should be in Havnor? Roke is not the heart of the world.
     That tower is, on which the sword of Erreth-Akbe is set, and in which stands the throne
     of Serriadh, of Akambar, of Maharion. Eight hundred years has the heart of the world
     been empty! We have the crown, but no king to wear it. We have the Lost Rune, the
     King’s Rune, the Rune of Peace, restored to us, but have we peace? Let there be a
     king upon the throne, and we will have peace, and even in the farthest Reaches the
     sorcerers will practice their arts with untroubled minds, and there will be order and a
     due season to all things.”
    “Aye,” said the Master Hand, a slight, quick man, modest of
     bearing but with clear and seeing eyes. “I am with you, Chanter. What wonder that
     wizardry goes astray, when all else goes astray? If the whole flock wanders, will our
     black sheep stay by the fold?”
    At that the Doorkeeper laughed, but he said nothing.
    “Then to you all,” said the Archmage, “it seems that
     there is nothing very wrong; or if there is, it lies in this, that our landsare ungoverned or ill-governed, so that all the arts and high
     skills of men suffer from neglect. With that much I agree. Indeed it is because the
     South is all but lost to peaceful commerce that we must depend on rumor; and who has any
     safe word from the West Reach, save this from Narveduen? If ships went forth and came
     back safely as of old, if our lands of Earthsea were well-knit, we might know how things
     stand in the remote places, and so could act. And I think we would