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“No,” Tenar said. “I have never understood men like you.”
Badass response to Aspen's threat
They looked from Aspen to Tenar with bland and courtly expressions, as if regretting the necessity of preventing a wizard from laying a curse on a middle-aged widow, but really, really, it would not do.
He could not hate her more. To be a woman was her fault. Nothing could worsen or amend it, in his eyes; no punishment was enough. He had looked at what had been done to Therru, and approved.
“a hundred years old, or near, or more,” Moss insisted—she had no fear of numbers and no respect for them—the
Nice
“full of juice,” they said. And one of the men, for they would have only men wait on them in the mansion,
“this is tolk.” Therru watched what she did and repeated the word, tolk, but without voice, only forming it with her lips, which were drawn back a little on the right side by the scarring.
She knows the True Words, but does not yet have the voice to speak them.
“You come too late, Aspen. I was eaten long ago. Go clean your own house!”
She had said the word, the true name of the stone, and it had been flung at her, in her face—in the face of evil, the hideous face— She had dared speak— She could not speak— She thought, in her own language, I cannot think in Hardic. I must not.
She knew that if she met Aspen she was lost, and thought he might be waiting for her on the way. But not, maybe, on this way.
The curse of stolen language, of stolen thought, is terrifying.
she dared not waken his interest again, lest he decide she was after all a vagrant or a witch or whatever he and the stone dragons were supposed to keep out of Gont Port.
CHAPTER 10 THE DOLPHIN
But there was a look to him that was not young at all, something in his eyes that made her think: he has been through the fire.
I shouldn’t have run from him. But all I could feel was her fear. She’s so little, all she can do is fear him. She’ll have to learn not to fear him. I
she knew its worth. But she loved him for his grief.
“Lady Tenar, you say you fled from one enemy and found another; but I came seeking a friend, and found another.” She smiled at his wit and kindness.
Tenar had told her, had promised her that he would never touch her again. The promise had been broken.
“I’m only cargo on a day like this,” said the mage. “Besides, with a sailor like Master Serrathen handling the ship, who needs a weatherworker?” We are so polite, she thought,
it’s so easy for Handy to take the sunlight from her, take the ship and the King and her childhood from her, and it’s so hard to give them back! A year I’ve spent trying to give them back to her, and with one touch he takes them and throws them away. And what good does it do him—what’s his prize, his power? Is power that—an emptiness?
Caring for PTSD
He thought he had learned pain, but he would learn it again and again, all his life, and forget none of it.
“I think,” said the King, “that the Healer of the Rune of Peace may be part of any council of this realm; don’t you think so, sir?”
They use their differences, as I had seen before, to make their decision strong.
“I had thought I’d never hear rain fall again. It was a great joy to me.” “Nine of us wet,” said the Windkey, “and one of us happy.”
the one we seek—sister or mother to a man of power, or even his teacher; for there are witches very wise in their way.
that one such as Cob could have such power because things were already altering . . . and that a change, a great change, has been taking place, has taken place?
“There is too much ordinary fear,” he said.
“They’ll be welcome at Oak Farm,” she said. “Though not as welcome as you would be.” “I will come when I can,” he said, a little sternly; and a little wistfully, “if I can.”
CHAPTER 11 HOME
and a woman and a little girl in old cloaks not much better than beggars, but he treated them as if they were a queen and a princess, so maybe that’s what they were.
“It was a girl from Atuan,” Tenar said. “A thousand years ago. I think I could sleep for a thousand years, just now.” “Go to bed, then.” Apple turned away, then turned back, lamp in hand. “King-kisser,” she said. “Get along with you,” said Tenar.
Such a nicely drawn moment.
She tried to think of the wizard’s use-name and could not; all she could think of was Tuaho, a Kargish word for a kind of tree, she could not remember what tree.
The Hardic word Aspen still taken from her
It is pleasant to be mothered by a daughter, and to behave as a daughter to one’s daughter. Tenar said impatiently, “I’ll be perfectly all right!” “You could at least get a dog.”
Is this cruel foreshadowing of her being turned into a dog?
But when she came to talk about the King, the words came tumbling out.
She had forgotten to mention his being at Re Albi at all. And she did not want to talk about Re Albi anymore. Her mind seemed to darken when she tried to think of it.
The curse so subtle and so omnipresent. Reminds us how much of our own existence is provisional, whimsical, mysterious. Where do thoughts come from, really?
that none of all that was here, all the griefs and dreams and wizardries and terrors of Re Albi left behind, for good. She was here, now, and this was home, these stone floors and walls,
You have scars, ugly scars, because an ugly, evil thing was done to you. People see the scars. But they see you, too, and you aren’t the scars. You aren’t ugly. You aren’t evil.
Whole passage is great
But it was not enough, the right and the truth. There was a gap, a void, a gulf, on beyond the right and the truth. Love, her love for Therru and Therru’s for her, made a bridge across that gap, a bridge of spiderweb, but love did not fill or close it. Nothing did that. And the child knew it better than she.
The crown of Morred would be placed on his head. He would turn as the trumpets sounded and seat himself on the throne that had been empty so many years, and look at his kingdom with those dark eyes that knew what pain was, what fear was.
as a witch, her . . . appearance wouldn’t be so much against her—possibly.” He cleared his throat. “There are witches who do very creditable work,”
The child must be free and know herself to be free, to grow in grace.
Like most people, Tiff believed that you are what happens to you. The rich and strong must have virtue; one to whom evil has been done must be bad, and may rightly be punished.
What are they? What’s the strength of that woman, for she’s not a fool, to hold a fire by the hand, to spin thread with the whirlwind?
never gave a thought to her or Therru, but only to his own precious shame. That was his child, his nurseling. That was all he cared about. He had never cared or thought about her, only about power—her
You aren’t being fair, Goha said to Tenar.
Nice that she has different names for different aspects of herself
“You have strength, Therru, and strength that is ignorant is dangerous.” “Like the ones who wouldn’t learn,” Therru said. “The wild ones.”
Therru comparing herself to dragons
“Let us in and we won’t hurt you,” one of the voices said.
Damn! So simple and so scary
She sat down in the hearthseat again, but now she was shaking, trembling from head to foot, as he had done.
Post adrenaline rush
“If I’d killed him—if he’d die!” Ged said with rage. “I could drag him out and bury him—”
Lovely texture. It is one thing to kill a man in a fight, when he is trying to break into a house to rape and kidnap. Another when he is wounded and helpless
Flames of yellow, orange, orange-red, red tongues of flame, flame-tongues, the words she could not speak. Tenar. “We call the star Tehanu,” she said.
CHAPTER 12 WINTER
Now, as she went out, there was a queer look to her, as if her face were not human at all, an animal, some strange horny-skinned wild creature with one bright eye, silent, escaping.
