In all his flood of talk the only word Gelluk had spoken in the Old Tongue, the language of which wizards’ spells were made, was the word turres. He had said it meant semen. Otter’s own gift of magery had recognized that meaning as the true one. Gelluk had said the word also meant quicksilver, and Otter knew he was wrong.
His humble teachers had taught him all the words they knew of the Language of the Making. Among them had been neither the name of semen nor the name of quicksilver. But his lips parted, his tongue moved. “Ayezur” he said.
His voice was the voice of the slave in the stone tower. It was she who knew the true name of quicksilver and spoke it through him.
Then for a while he held still, body and mind, beginning to understand for the first time where his power lay.
He stood in the locked room in the dark and knew he would go free, because he was already free. A storm of praise ran through him.
After a while, deliberately, he re-entered the trap of spell-bonds, went back to his old place, sat down on the pallet, and went on thinking. The prisoning spell was still there, yet it had no power over him now. He could walk into it and out of it as if it were mere lines painted on the floor. Gratitude for this freedom beat in him as steady as his heartbeat.
He thought what he must do, and how he must do it. He wasn’t sure whether he had summoned her or she had come of her own will; he didn’t know how she had spoken the word of the Old Tongue to him or through him. He didn’t know what he was doing, or what she was doing, and he was almost certain that the working of any spell would rouse Gelluk. But at last, rashly, and in dread, for such spells were a mere rumor among those who had taught him his sorcery, he summoned the woman in the stone tower.
He brought her into his mind and saw her as he had seen her, there, in that room, and called out to her; and she came.
Her apparition stood again just outside the spiderweb cords of the spell, gazing at him, and seeing him, for a soft, bluish, sourceless light filled the room. Her sore, raw lips quivered but she did not speak.
He spoke, giving her his true name: “I am Medra.”
“I am Anieb,” she whispered.
“How can we get free?”
“His name.”
“Even if I knew it… When I’m with him I can’t speak.”
“If I was with you, I could use it.”
“I can’t call you.”
“But I can come,” she said.
She looked round, and he looked up. Both knew that Gelluk had sensed something, had wakened. Otter felt the bonds close and tighten, and the old shadow fall.
“I will come, Medra,” she said. She held out her thin hand in a fist, then opened it palm up as if offering him something. Then she was gone.
The light went with her. He was alone in the dark. The cold grip of the spells took him by the throat and choked him, bound his hands, pressed on his lungs. He crouched, gasping. He could not think; he could not remember. “Stay with me,” he said, and did not know who he spoke to. He was frightened, and did not know what he was frightened of. The wizard, the power, the spell… It was all darkness. But in his body, not in his mind, burned a knowledge he could not name any more, a certainty that was like a tiny lamp held in his hands in a maze of caverns underground. He kept his eyes on that seed of light.
Weary, evil dreams of suffocation came to him, but took no hold on him. He breathed deep. He slept at last. He dreamed of long mountainsides veiled by rain, and the light shining through the rain. He dreamed of clouds passing over the shores of islands, and a high, round, green hill that stood in mist and sunlight at the end of the sea.