But he went forward, because he must go forward. After a long time he realized that to go forward here was to go in a circle and come round on one’s own tracks again. Yet he must get out, get away. It grew more and more urgent. He began to run. As he ran, the circles narrowed in and the ground began to slant. He was running in the darkening gloom, faster and faster, around the sinking inner lip of a pit, an enormous whirlpool sucking down to darkness: and as he knew this, his foot slipped and he fell.
“What’s the matter, Arren?”
Sparrowhawk spoke to him from the stern. Grey dawn held the sky and sea still.
“Nothing.”
“The nightmare?”
“Nothing.”
Arren was cold, and his right arm ached from having been cramped under him. He shut his eyes against the growing light and thought, “He hints of this and hints of that, but he will never tell me clearly where we’re going, or why, or why I should go there. And now he drags this madman with us. Which is maddest, the lunatic or I, for coming with him? The two of them may understand each other; it’s the wizards who are mad now, Sopli said. I could have been at home by now, at home in the Hall in Berila, in my room with the carven walls and the red rugs on the floor and a fire in the hearth, waking up to go out a-hawking with my father. Why did I come with him? Why did he bring me? Because it’s my way to go, he says, but that’s wizard’s talk, making things seem great by great words. But the meaning of the words is always somewhere else. If I have any way to go, it’s to my home, not wandering senselessly across the Reaches. I have duties at home and am shirking them. If he really thinks there is some enemy of wizardry at work, why did he come alone, with me? He might have brought another mage to help him- a hundred of them. He could have brought an army of warriors, a fleet of ships. Is this how a great peril is met, by sending out an old man and a boy in a boat? This is mere folly. He is mad himself; it is as he said, he seeks death. He seeks death, and wants to take me with him. But I am not mad and not old; I will not die; I will not go with him.”
He sat up on his elbow, looking forward. The moon that had risen before them as they left Sosara Bay was again before them, sinking. Behind, in the east, day came wan and dull. There were no clouds, but a faint, sickly overcast. Later in the day the sun grew hot, but it shone veiled, without splendor.
All day long they coasted Lorbanery, low and green to their right hand. A light wind blew off the land and filled their sail. Toward evening they passed a long last cape; the breeze died down. Sparrowhawk spoke the magewind into the sail, and like a falcon loosed from the wrist, Lookfar started and fled forward eagerly, putting the Isle of Silk behind.
Sopli the Dyer had cowered in the same place all day, evidently afraid of the boat and afraid of the sea, seasick and wretched. He spoke now, hoarsely. “Are we going west?”
The sunset was right in his face; but Sparrowhawk, patient with his stupidest questions, nodded.
“To Obehol?”
“Obehol lies west of Lorbanery.”
“A long way west. Maybe the place is there.”
“What is it like, the place?”
“How do I know? How could I see it? It’s not on Lorbanery! I hunted for it for years, four years, five years, in the dark, at night, shutting my eyes, always with him calling Come, come, but I couldn’t come. I’m no lord of wizards who can tell the ways in the dark. But there’s a place to come to in the light, under the sun too. That’s what Mildi and my mother wouldn’t understand. They kept looking in the dark. Then old Mildi died, and my mother lost her mind. She forgot the spells we use in the dyeing, and it affected her mind. She wanted to die, but I told her to wait. Wait till I find the place. There must be a place. If the dead can come back to life in the world, there must be a place in the world where it happens.”