“Is it a wicked thing, then?”
“I should call it a misunderstanding, rather. A misunderstanding of life. Death and life are the same thing – like the two sides of my hand, the palm and the back. And still the palm and the back are not the same… They can be neither separated, nor mixed.”
“Then no one uses those spells now?”
“I have known only one man who used them freely, not reckoning their risk. For they are risky, dangerous, beyond any other magery. Death and life are like the two sides of my hand, I said, but the truth is we do not know what life is or what death is. To claim power over what you do not understand is not wise, nor is the end of it likely to be good.”
“Who was the man who used them?” Arren asked. He had not found Sparrowhawk so willing to answer questions before, in this quiet, thoughtful mood; both of them were consoled by their talk, dark though the subject of it was.
“He lived in Havnor. They accounted him a mere sorcerer, but in native power he was a great mage. He made money from his art, showing any who paid him whatever spirit they asked to see, dead wife or husband or child, filling his house with unquiet shadows of old centuries, the fair women of the days of the Kings. I saw him summon from the Dry Land my own old master who was Archmage in my youth, Nemmerle, for a mere trick to entertain the idle. And that great soul came at his call, like a dog to heel. I was angry and challenged him -I was not Archmage then- saying, ‘You compel the dead to come into your house: will you come with me to theirs?’ And I made him go with me into the Dry Land, though he fought me with all his will and changed his shape and wept aloud when nothing else would do.”
“So you killed him?” Arren whispered, enthralled.
“No! I made him follow me into the land of the dead, and return with me from it. He was afraid. He who summoned the dead to him so easily was more afraid of death -of his own death- than any man I ever knew. At the wall of stones… But I tell you more than a novice ought to know. And you’re not even a novice.” Through the dusk the keen eyes returned Arren’s gaze for a moment, abashing him. “No matter,” said the Archmage. “There is a wall of stones, then, at a certain place on the bourne. Across it the spirit goes at death, and across it a living man may go and return again, if he is a mage…. By the wall of stones this man crouched down, on the side of the living, and tried to withstand my will, and could not. He clung to the stones with his hands and cursed and screamed. I have never seen a fear like that; it sickened me with its own sickness. I should have known by that that I did wrong. I was possessed
by anger and by vanity. For he was very strong, and I was eager to prove that I was stronger.”
“What did he do afterward-when you came back?”
“Grovelled, and swore never to use the Pelnish Lore again; kissed my hand and would have killed me if he dared. He went from Havnor into the West, to Paln perhaps; I heard years later that he had died. He was white-haired when I knew him, though long-armed and quick like a wrestler. What made me fall to talking of him? I cannot even bring to mind his name.”
“His true name?”
“No! that I can remember-“ Then he paused, and for the space of three heartbeats was utterly still.
“They called him Cob in Havnor,” he said in a changed, careful voice. It had grown too dark for expression to be seen. Arren saw him turn and look at the yellow star, now higher above the waves and casting across them a broken trail of gold as slender as a spider’s thread. After a long silence he said, “It’s not only in dreams, you see, that we find ourselves facing what is yet to be in what was long forgotten, and speaking what seems nonsense because we will not see its meaning.”