They passed between Komay and Gosk in foul weather, seeing neither isle in the fog and rain, and knowing they had passed them only on the next day when they saw ahead of them an isle of pinnacled cliffs above which sea-gulls wheeled in huge flocks whose mewing clamor could be heard from far over the sea. Vetch said, ‘That will be Astowell, from the look of it. Lastland. East and south of it the charts are empty.”
“Yet they who live there may know of farther lands,” Ged answered.
“Why do you say so?” Vetch asked, for Ged had spoken uneasily; and his answer to this again was halting and strange. “Not there,” he said, gazing at Astowell ahead, and past it, or through it “Not there. Not on the sea. Not on the sea but on dry land: what land? Before the springs of the open sea, beyond the sources, behind the gates of daylight-“
Then he fell silent, and when he spoke again it was in an ordinary voice, as if he had been freed from a spell or a vision, and had no clear memory of it.
The port of Astowell, a creek-mouth between rocky heights, was on the northern shore of the isle, and all the huts of the town faced north and west; it was as if the island turned its face, though from so far away, always towards Earthsea, towards mankind.
Excitement and dismay attended the arrival of strangers, in a season when no boat had ever braved the seas round Astowell. The women all stayed in the wattle huts, peering out the door, hiding their children behind their skirts, drawing back fearfully into the darkness of the huts as the strangers came up from the beach. The men, lean fellows ill-clothed against the cold, gathered in a solemn circle about Vetch and Ged, and each one held a stone handaxe or a knife of shell. But once their fear was past they made the strangers very welcome, and there was no end to their questions. Seldom did any ship come to them even from Soders or Rolameny, they having nothing to trade for bronze or fine wares; they had not even any wood. Their boats were coracles woven of reed, and it was a brave sailor who would go as far as Gosk or Kornay in such a craft. They dwelt all alone here at the edge of all the maps. They had no witch or sorcerer, and seemed not to recognise the young wizards’ staffs for what they were, admiring them only for the precious stuff they were made of, wood. Their chief or Isle-Man was very old, and he alone of his people had ever before seen a man born in the Archipelago. Ged, therefore, was a marvel to them; the men brought their little sons to look at the Archipelagan, so they might remember him when they were old. They had never heard of Gont, only of Havnor and Ea, and took him for a Lord of Havnor. He did his best to answer their questions about the white city he had never seen. But he was restless as the evening wore on, and at last he asked the men of the village, as they sat crowded round the firepit in the lodgehouse in the reeking warmth of the goatdung and broom-faggots that were all their fuel, “What lies eastward of your land?”
They were silent, some grinning others grim.
The old Isle-Man answered, “The sea.”
“There is no land beyond?”
“This is Lastland. There is no land beyond. There is nothing but water till world’s edge.”
“These are wise men, father,” said a younger man, “seafarers, voyagers. Maybe they know of a land we do not know of.”
“There is no land east of this land,” said the old man, and he looked long at Ged, and spoke no more to him.
The companions slept that night in the smoky warmth of the lodge. Before daylight Ged roused his friend, whispering, “Estarriol, wake. We cannot stay, we must go.”
“Why so soon?” Vetch asked, full of sleep.
“Not soon- late. I have followed too slow. It has found the way to escape me, and so doom me. It must not escape me, for I must follow it however far it goes. If I lose it I am lost”