The Farthest Shore
P
RAISE FOR THE
E
ARTHSEA
N
OVELS BY
U
RSULA
K. L
E
G
UIN
“Le Guin, one of modern science fiction’s most acclaimed writers, is also a fantasist of genius. . . . [Earthsea] is among her finest creations.”
—
The New York Times
“Thrilling, wise, and beautiful . . . written in prose as taut and clean as a ship’s sail. Every word is perfect.”
—
The Guardian
“Among the looms of fantasy fiction, Ursula K. Le Guin weaves on where J. R. R. Tolkien cast off. . . . Earthsea—fuming with dragons and busy with magic—has replaced Tolkien’s Middle Earth as the chosen land for high, otherworldly adventure.”
—
Sunday Times
(London)
“Readers will be beguiled by the flawless, poetic prose, the philosophy expressed in thoughtful, potent metaphor, and the consummately imagined world.”
—
Kirkus Reviews
“A thoughtful, brilliant achievement.”
—
Horn Book
“A treasure . . . It is at the top of any list of fantasy to be cherished.”
—award-winning science fiction and fantasy writer Andre Norton
“Stellar . . . Le Guin is still at the height of her powers, a superb stylist with a knack for creating characters who are both wise and deeply humane.”
—
Publishers Weekly
in a starred review for
Tales from Earthsea
“Here there be dragons, and Ms. Le Guin’s dragons are some of the best in literature.”
—award-winning fantasy writer Robin McKinley,
The New York Times Book Review
“Richly told. . . . [Le Guin] draws us into the magical land and its inhabitants’ doings immediately.”
—
Booklist
“Strong work from a master storyteller.”
—
Library Journal
“All of Ursula Le Guin’s strengths are abundantly present . . . narrative power, tautly controlled and responsive prose, an imagination that never loses touch with the reality of things as they are.”
—
The Economist
“Le Guin is not only one of the purest stylists writing in English, but the most transcendently truthful of writers.”
—
The Nation
“Le Guin understands magic and dragons better than anyone, and her writing only gets better with each new book.”
—Michael Swanwick, author of
Stations of the Tide
CONTENTS
For Elisabeth, Caroline,
and Theodore
CHAPTER 1THE ROWAN TREEI
N THE COURT OF THE
fountain the sun of
March shone through young leaves of ash and elm, and water leapt and fell through shadow
and clear light. About that roofless court stood four high walls of stone. Behind those
were rooms and courts, passages, corridors, towers, and at last the heavy outmost walls
of the Great House of Roke, which would stand any assault of war or earthquake or the
sea itself, being built not only of stone, but of incontestable magic. For Roke is the
Isle of the Wise, where the Art Magic is taught; and the Great House is the school and
central place of wizardry; and the central place of the House is that small court far
within the walls, where the fountain plays and the trees stand in rain or sun or
starlight.
The tree nearest the fountain, a well-grown rowan, had humped and cracked
the marble pavement with its roots. Veins of bright green moss filled the cracks,
spreading up from the grassy plot around the basin. A boy sat there on the low hump of
marble and moss, his gaze following the fall of the fountain’s central jet. He
was nearly a man, but still a boy; slender, dressed richly. His face
might have been cast in golden bronze, it was so finely molded and so still.
Behind him, fifteen feet away perhaps, under the trees at the other end of
the small central lawn, a man stood, or seemed to stand. It was hard to be certain in
that flickering shift of shadow and warm light. Surely he was there, a man in white,
standing motionless. As the boy watched the fountain, the man watched the boy. There was
no sound or movement but the play of leaves and the play of the water and its continual
song.
The man walked forward. A wind stirred the rowan tree and moved its newly
opened leaves. The boy leapt to his feet, lithe and startled. He faced the man and bowed
to him. “My Lord Archmage,” he said.
The man stopped before him, a short, straight, vigorous figure in a hooded
cloak of white wool. Above the folds of the laid-down hood his face was reddish-dark,
hawk-nosed, seamed on one cheek with old scars. The eyes were bright and fierce. Yet he
spoke gently. “It’s a pleasant place to sit, the Court of the
Fountain,” he said, and, forestalling the boy’s apology, “You have
traveled far and have not rested. Sit down again.”
He knelt on the white rim of the basin and held out his hand to the ring
of glittering drops that fell from the higher bowl of the fountain, letting the water
run through his fingers. The boy sat down again on the humped tiles, and for a minute
neither spoke.
