“It is very seldom,” the young man said at last, “that dragons ask to do men favors.”
“But it is very common,” said the dragon, “for cats to play with mice before they kill them.
“But I did not come here to play, or to be played with. I came to strike a bargain with you.”
Like a sword in sharpness but five times the length of any sword, the point of the dragon’s tail arched up scorpionwise over his mailed back, above the tower. Dryly he spoke: “I strike no bargains. I take. What have you to offer that I cannot take from you when I like?”
“Safety. Your safety. Swear that you will never fly eastward of Pendor, and I will swear to leave you unharmed.”
A grating sound came from the dragon’s throat like the noise of an avalanche far off, stones falling among mountains. Fire danced along his three-forked tongue. He raised himself up higher, looming over the ruins. “You offer me safety! You threaten me! With what?”
“With your name, Yevaud.”
Ged’s voice shook as he spoke the name, yet he spoke it clear and loud. At the sound of it, the old dragon held still, utterly still. A minute went by, and another; and then Ged, standing there in his rocking chip of a boat, smiled. He had staked this venture and his life on a guess drawn from old histories of dragon-lore learned on Roke, a guess that this Dragon of Pendor was the same that had spoiled the west of Osskil in the days of Elfarran and Morred, and had been driven from Osskill by a wizard, Elt, wise in names. The guess had held.
“We are matched, Yevaud. You have the strength: I have your name. Will you bargain?”
Still the dragon made no reply.
Many years bad the dragon sprawled on the island where golden breastplates and emeralds lay scattered among dust and bricks and bones; he had watched his black lizard-brood play among crumbling houses and try their wings from the cliffs; he had slept long in the sun, unwaked by voice or sail. He had grown old. It was hard now to stir, to face this mage-lad, this frail enemy, at the sight of whose staff Yevaud, the old dragon, winced.
“You may choose nine stones from my hoard,” he said at last, his voice hissing and whining in his long jaws. “The best: take your choice. Then go!”
“I do not want your stones, Yevaud.”
“Where is men’s greed gone? Men loved bright stones in the old days in the North… I know what it is you want, wizard. I, too, can offer you safety, for I know what can save you. I know what alone can save you. There is a horror follows you. I will tell you its name.”
Ged’s heart leaped in him, and he clutched his staff, standing as still as the dragon stood. He fought a moment with sudden, startling hope.
It was not his own life that he bargained for. One mastery, and only one, could he hold over the dragon. He set hope aside and did what he must do.
“That is not what I ask for, Yevaud.”
When he spoke the dragon’s name it was as if he held the huge being on a fine, thin leash, tightening it on his throat. He could feel the ancient malice and experience of men in the dragon’s gaze that rested on him, he could see the steel talons each as long as a man’s forearm, and the stone-hard hide, and the withering fire that lurked in the dragon’s throat: and yet always the leash tightened, tightened.
He spoke again: “Yevaud! Swear by your name that you and your sons will never come to the Archipelago.”
Flames broke suddenly bright and loud from the dragon’s jaws, and he said, “I swear it by my name!”
Silence lay over the isle then, and Yevaud lowered his great head.
When he raised it again and looked, the wizard was gone, and the sail of the boat was a white fleck on the waves eastward, heading towards the fat bejewelled islands of the inner seas. Then in rage the old Dragon of Pendor rose up breaking the tower with the writhing of his body, and beating his wings that spanned the whole width of the ruined town. But his oath held him, and he did not fly, then or ever, to the Archipelago.