The Tombs of Atuan (Earthsea Cycle, #2)

by Ursula K. Le Guin

They stood there full of meaning, and yet there was no saying what they meant.

“You are Arha. There is nothing left. It was all eaten.”

She whispered, as one does in the dark.

She said to herself, fiercely: This is my place, I belong here, I will not be afraid!

Touch was one’s whole guidance; one could not see the way, but held it in one’s hands.

Penthe might disbelieve in the gods, but she feared the unnameable powers of the dark—as did every mortal soul.

then she danced across the centuries, barefoot in black robes, and knew that the dance had never ceased.

Most things grow old and perish, as the centuries go on and on. Very few are the precious things that remain precious, or the tales that are still told.”

If Thar had been stern, she had never been cruel. It was pride she had taught to Arha, not fear.

do flies need rules to tell them not to enter in a spider’s web?

What were they waiting for? For their hands to act, for their tongue to speak….

She was free of the days altogether. Underground, there were no days. There was always and only night.

That’s all there is to know, in the end. The silence, and the dark. You know everything, wizard. But I know one thing—the one true thing!”

The dust was thick, thick, and every grain of it might be a day that had passed here where there was no time or light: days, months, years, ages all gone to dust.

You are the First Priestess; does that not mean also that you are the last?…

They should not be denied nor forgotten, but neither should they be worshiped. The Earth is beautiful, and bright, and kindly, but that is not all. The Earth is also terrible, and dark, and cruel. The rabbit shrieks dying in the green meadows. The mountains clench their great hands full of hidden fire. There are sharks in the sea, and there is cruelty in men’s eyes. And where men worship these things and abase themselves before them, there evil breeds; there places are made in the world where darkness gathers, places given over wholly to the Ones whom we call Nameless, the ancient and holy Powers of the Earth before the Light, the powers of the dark, of ruin, of madness….

To be reborn one must die, Tenar. It is not so hard as it looks from the other side.”

Living, being in the world, was a much greater and stranger thing than she had ever dreamed.

I could call one by name, and he’d come. But would you catch and skin and broil a rabbit that you’d called to you thus? Perhaps if you were starving. But it would be a breaking of trust, I think.”

He rubbed his jaw and looked thoughtful and severe. She watched him, and never could she have said what was in her heart as she watched him, in the firelight, in the mountain dusk.

After a pause she said, “I see your magic is not good only for large things.” “Hospitality,” he said, “kindness to a stranger, that’s a very large thing. Thanks are enough, of course. But I was sorry for the goats.”

I do what I must do. Where I go, I must go alone. So long as you need me, I’ll be with you in Havnor. And if you ever need me again, call me. I will come. I would come from my grave if you called me, Tenar! But I cannot stay with you.”

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.

You were the vessel of evil. The evil is poured out. It is done. It is buried in its own tomb. You were never made for cruelty and darkness; you were made to hold light, as a lamp burning holds and gives its light. I found the lamp unlit; I won’t leave it on some desert island like a thing found and cast away.

Look! In the place of darkness I found the light, her spirit. By her an old evil was brought to nothing. By her I was brought out of the grave. By her the broken was made whole, and where there was hatred there will be peace.’ ”

Because to me, fantasy isn’t wishful thinking, but a way of reflecting, and reflecting on reality.

my heart told me incontrovertibly that neither gender could go far without the other. 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. A large lesson, a new knowledge for both these strong, willful, lonely souls.