* * * *
In a busy street leading down to the busy wharfs of Gont Port, the wizard Ogion stopped short. The ship’s captain beside him walked on several steps and turned to see Ogion talking to the air.
“But I will come, master!” he said. And then after a pause, “How soon?” And after a longer pause, he told the air something in a language the ship’s captain did not understand, and made a gesture that darkened the air about him for an instant.
“Captain,” he said, “I’m sorry, I must wait to spell your sails. An earthquake is near. I must warn the city. Do you tell them down there, every ship that can sail make for the open sea. Clear out, past the Armed Cliffs! Good luck to you.” And he turned and ran back up the street, a tall, strong man with rough greying hair, running now like a stag.
* * * *
Gont Port lies at the inner end of a long narrow bay between steep shores. Its entrance from the sea is between two great headlands, the Gates of the Port, the Armed Cliffs, not a hundred feet apart. They are safe from sea-pirates in Gont Port. But their safety is their danger; the long bay follows a fault in the earth, and jaws that have opened may shut.
When he had done what he could to warn the city, and seen all the gate-guards and port-guards doing what they could to keep the few roads out from becoming choked and murderous with panicky people, Ogion shut himself into a room in the signal tower of the Port, locked the door, for everybody wanted him at once, and sent a sending to the Dark Pond in Semere’s cow pasture up on the Mountain.
His old master was sitting in the grass near the pond, eating an apple. Bits of eggshell flecked the ground near his legs, which were caked with drying mud. When he looked up and saw Ogion’s sending he smiled a wide, sweet smile. But he looked old. He had never looked so old. Ogion had not seen him for over a year, having been busy; he was always busy in Gont Port, doing the business of the lords and people, never a chance to walk in the forests on the mountainside or to come sit with Enhemon in the little house at Re Albi and listen and be still. Enhemon was an old man, near eighty now; and he was frightened. He smiled with joy to see Ogion, but he was frightened.
“I think what we have to do,” he said without preamble, “is try to hold the fault from slipping much, you at the Gates and me at the inner end, in the Mountain. Working together, you know. We might be able to. I can feel it building up, can you?”
Ogion shook his head. He let his sending sit down in the grass near Enhemon, though it did not bend the stems of the grass where it stepped or sat. “I’ve done nothing but set the city in a panic,” he said. “And send the ships out of the bay. What is it you feel? How do you feel it?”
They were technical questions, mage to mage. Enhemon hesitated before answering.
“I learned from Ard,” he said, and paused again. He had never told Ogion anything about his first teacher, a sorcerer of no fame, even in Gont, and perhaps of ill fame. There was some mystery or shame connected with Ard. Though he was talkative, for a wizard, Enhemon was silent as a stone about some things. Ogion, who respected silence, had never asked him about his teacher.
“It’s not Roke magic,” the old man said. His voice was dry, a little forced. “Not to do with the Old Powers, either. Nothing of that sort. Nothing sticky.” That had always been his word for evil doings, spells for gain, curses, black magic: “sticky stuff.” After a while, searching for words, he went on: “Dirt. Rocks. It’s a dirty magic. Must be very old. Very old. As old as Gont.”
“Will it control the rocks, the earth?”
“I should think so.” Enhemon was burying the core of his apple and the larger bits of eggshell under loose dirt, patting it over them neatly. “Of course I know the words, but I’ll have to learn what to do as I go. That’s the trouble with the big spells, isn’t it? You learn what you’re doing while you do it. No chance to practice. Ah—there! You feel that?”