The Tombs of Atuan (Earthsea Cycle, #2)

by Ursula K. Le Guin

Do you know how to read?” “No. It is one of the black arts.”

She cried for the waste of her years in bondage to a useless evil. She wept in pain, because she was free.

All her life she had looked into the dark; but this was a vaster darkness, this night on the ocean. There was no end to it. There was no roof. It went on out beyond the stars. No earthly Powers moved it. It had been before light, and would be after. It had been before life, and would be after. It went on beyond evil.

A writer sometimes writes a message for herself, to be read when she begins to understand it.

So, in my story, neither the woman nor the man can get free without the other. Not in that trap. Each has to ask for the other’s help and learn to trust and depend on the other.