This yr marks some massive anniversaries on the planet of groundbreaking science fiction and fantasy creator Ursula Ok. Le Guin: 50 years for The Tombs of Atuan and The Lathe of Heaven, and 20 years for The Other Wind and Tales from Earthsea. Today, we’ve obtained an excerpt to share from Tales from Earthsea story “On the High Marsh” (it’s additionally within the assortment The Found and the Lost)—the proper deal with for followers of Le Guin, who handed away in 2018, and newcomers alike, as a result of there’s no higher time than proper now to start out studying and appreciating her works.
As an added bonus, we’ve additionally obtained some pretty paintings by Charles Vess that first appeared within the illustrated quantity of The Books of Earthsea, which was launched by Saga in 2018.
On the High Marsh
The island of Semel lies north and west throughout the Pelnish Sea from Havnor, south and west of the Enlades. Though it is among the nice isles of the Earthsea Archipelago, there aren’t many tales from Semel. Enlad has its superb historical past, and Havnor its wealth, and Paln its sick reputation, however Semel has solely cattle and sheep, forests and little cities, and the nice silent volcano referred to as Andanden standing over all.
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South of Andanden lies a land the place the ashes fell 100 ft deep when final the volcano spoke. Rivers and streams minimize their approach seaward by means of that top plain, winding and pooling, spreading and wandering, making a marsh of it, a giant, desolate, waterland with a far horizon, few timber, not many individuals. The ashy soil grows a wealthy, brilliant grass, and the individuals there maintain cattle, fattening beef for the populous southern coast, letting the animals stray for miles throughout the plain, the rivers serving as fences.
As mountains will, Andanden makes the climate. It gathers clouds round it. The summer season is brief, the winter lengthy, out on the excessive marsh.
In the early darkness of a winter day, a traveler stood on the windswept crossing of two paths, neither very promising, mere cattle-tracks among the many reeds, and appeared for some signal of the best way he ought to take.
As he got here down the final slope of the mountain he had seen homes right here and there out within the marshlands, a village not distant. He had thought he was on the best way to the village, however had taken a mistaken turning someplace. Tall reeds rose up shut beside the paths, in order that if a light-weight shone anyplace he couldn’t see it. Water chuckled softly someplace close to his ft. He had used up his sneakers strolling spherical Andanden on the merciless roads of black lava. The soles had been worn proper by means of, and his ft ached with the icy damp of the marsh paths.
It grew darker rapidly. A haze was developing from the south, blotting out the sky. Only above the large, dim bulk of the mountain did stars burn clearly. Wind whistled within the reeds, mushy, dismal.
The traveler stood on the crossway and whistled again on the reeds.
Something moved on one of many tracks, one thing massive, darkish, within the darkness.
“Are you there, my dear?” stated the traveler. He spoke within the Old Speech, the Language of the Making. “Come along, then, Ulla,” he stated, and the heifer got here a step or two in direction of him, in direction of her identify, whereas he walked to fulfill her. He made out the large head extra by contact than sight, stroking the silken dip between her eyes, scratching her brow on the roots of the nubbin horns. “Beautiful, you are beautiful,” he instructed her, respiratory her grassy breath, leaning towards her giant heat. “Will you lead me, dear Ulla? Will you lead me where I need to go?”
He was lucky in having met a farm heifer, not one of many roaming cattle who would solely have led him deeper into the marshes. His Ulla was given to leaping fences, however after she had wandered some time she would start to have fond ideas of the cow barn and the mom from whom she nonetheless stole a mouthful of milk typically; and now she willingly took the traveler dwelling. She walked, sluggish however purposeful, down one of many tracks, and he went together with her, a hand on her hip when the best way was large sufficient. When she waded a knee-deep stream, he held onto her tail. She scrambled up the low, muddy financial institution and flicked her tail free, however she waited for him to scramble much more awkwardly after her. Then she plodded gently on. He pressed towards her flank and clung to her, for the stream had chilled him to the bone, and he was shivering.
“Moo,” stated his information, softly, and he noticed the dim, small sq. of yellow gentle just a bit to his left.
“Thank you,” he stated, opening the gate for the heifer, who went to greet her mom, whereas he stumbled throughout the darkish houseyard to the door.
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It could be Berry on the door, although why he knocked she didn’t know. “Come in, you fool!” she stated, and he knocked once more, and she or he put down her mending and went to the door. “Can you be drunk already?” she stated, after which noticed him.
The very first thing she thought was a king, a lord, Maharion of the songs, tall, straight, lovely. The subsequent factor she thought was a beggar, a misplaced man, in soiled garments, hugging himself with shivering arms.
He stated, “I lost my way. Have I come to the village?” His voice was hoarse and harsh, a beggar’s voice, however not a beggar’s accent.
“It’s a half-mile on,” stated Gift.
“Is there an inn?”
“Not till you’d come to Oraby, a ten-twelve miles on south.” She thought-about solely briefly. “If you need a room for the night, I have one. Or San might, if you’re going to the village.”
“I’ll stay here if I may,” he stated in that princely approach, along with his enamel chattering, holding on to the doorjamb to maintain on his ft.
“Take your shoes off,” she stated, “they’re soaking. Come in then.” She stood apart and stated, “Come to the fire,” and had him sit down in Bren’s settle near the fireside. “Stir the fire up a bit,” she stated. “Will you have a bit of soup? It’s still hot.”
“Thank you, mistress,” he muttered, crouching on the hearth. She introduced him a bowl of broth. He drank from it eagerly but warily, as if lengthy unaccustomed to sizzling soup.
“You came over the mountain?”
He nodded.
“Whatever for?”
“To come here,” he stated. He was starting to tremble much less. His naked ft had been a tragic sight, bruised, swollen, sodden. She wished to inform him to place them proper to the hearth’s heat, however didn’t prefer to presume. Whatever he was, he wasn’t a beggar by selection.
“Not many come here to the High Marsh,” she stated. “Peddlers and such. But not in winter.”
He completed his soup, and she or he took the bowl. She sat down in her place, the stool by the oil lamp to the appropriate of the fireside, and took up her mending. “Get warm through, and then I’ll show you your bed,” she stated. “There’s no fire in that room. Did you meet weather, up on the mountain? They say there’s been snow.”
“Some flurries,” he stated. She obtained a great have a look at him now within the gentle of lamp and hearth. He was not a younger man, skinny, not as tall as she had thought. It was a positive face, however there was one thing mistaken, one thing amiss. He appears to be like ruined, she thought, a ruined man.
“Why would you come to the Marsh?” she requested. She had a proper to ask, having taken him in, but she felt a discomfort in urgent the query.
“I was told there’s a murrain among the cattle here.” Now that he wasn’t all locked up with chilly his voice was lovely. He talked just like the tale-tellers after they spoke the elements of the heroes and the Dragonlords. Maybe he was a teller or a singer? But no; the murrain, he had stated.
“There is.”
“I may be able to help the beasts.”
“You’re a curer?”
He nodded.
“Then you’ll be more than welcome. The plague is terrible among the cattle. And getting worse.”
He stated nothing. She may see the heat coming into him, untying him.
“Put your feet up to the fire,” she stated abruptly. “I have some old shoes of my husband’s.” It value her one thing to say that, but when she had stated it she felt launched, untied too. What was she protecting Bren’s sneakers for, anyhow? They had been too small for Berry and too massive for her. She’d given away his garments, however stored the sneakers, she didn’t know what for. For this fellow, it could appear. Things got here spherical when you may look ahead to them, she thought. “I’ll set ’em out for you,” she stated. “Yours are perished.”
He glanced at her. His darkish eyes had been giant, deep, opaque like a horse’s eyes, unreadable.
“He’s dead,” she stated, “two years. The marsh fever. You have to watch out for that, here. The water. I live with my brother. He’s in the village, at the tavern. We keep a dairy. I make cheese. Our herd’s been all right,” and she or he made the signal to avert evil. “I maintain ’em shut in. Out on the ranges, the murrain’s very unhealthy. Maybe the chilly climate ‘ll put an end to it.”
“More likely to kill the beasts that sicken with it,” the man said. He sounded a bit sleepy.
“I’m referred to as Gift,” she stated. “My brother’s Berry.”
“Gully,” he named himself after a pause, and she or he thought it was a reputation he had made as much as name himself. It didn’t match him. Nothing about him match collectively, made a complete. Yet she felt no mistrust of him. She was straightforward with him. He meant no hurt to her. She thought there was kindness in him, the best way he spoke of the animals. He would have a approach with them, she thought. He was like an animal himself, a silent, broken creature that wanted safety however couldn’t ask for it.
“Come,” she stated, “before you fall asleep there,” and he adopted her obediently to Berry’s room, which wasn’t rather more than a cabinet constructed onto the nook of the home. Her room was behind the chimney. Berry would are available in, drunk, shortly, and she or he’d put down the pallet within the chimney nook for him. Let the traveler have a great mattress for an evening. Maybe he’d go away a copper or two together with her when he went on. There was a horrible scarcity of coppers in her family nowadays.
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He woke, as he at all times did, in his room within the Great House. He didn’t perceive why the ceiling was low and the air smelt recent however bitter and cattle had been bawling exterior. He needed to lie nonetheless and are available again to this different place and this different man, whose use-name he couldn’t bear in mind, although he had stated it final evening to a heifer or a lady. He knew his true identify but it surely was no good right here, wherever right here was, or anyplace. There had been black roads and dropping slopes and an enormous inexperienced land mendacity down earlier than him minimize with rivers, shining with waters. A chilly wind blowing. The reeds had whistled, and the younger cow had led him by means of the stream, and Emer had opened the door. He had recognized her identify as quickly as he noticed her. But he should use another identify. He should not name her by her identify. He should bear in mind what identify he had instructed her to name him. He should not be Irioth, although he was Irioth. Maybe in time he could be one other man. No; that was mistaken; he should be this man. This man’s legs ached and his ft harm. But it was a great mattress, a feather mattress, heat, and he needn’t get out of it but. He drowsed some time, drifting away from Irioth.
When he obtained up ultimately, he puzzled how previous he was, and checked out his palms and arms to see if he was seventy. He nonetheless appeared forty, although he felt seventy and moved prefer it, wincing. He obtained his garments on, foul as they had been from days and days of journey. There was a pair of sneakers underneath the chair, worn however good, robust sneakers, and a pair of knit wool stockings to go along with them. He put the stockings on his battered ft and limped into the kitchen. Emer stood on the massive sink, straining one thing heavy in a fabric.
“Thank you for these and the shoes,” he stated, and thanking her for the reward, remembered her use-name however stated solely, “Mistress.”
“You’re welcome,” she stated, and hoisted no matter it was into a large pottery bowl, and wiped her palms down her apron. He knew nothing in any respect about ladies. He had not lived the place ladies had been since he was ten years previous. He had been afraid of them, the ladies that shouted at him to get out of the best way in that nice different kitchen way back. But since he had been touring about in Earthsea he had met ladies and located them straightforward to be with, just like the animals; they went about their enterprise not paying a lot consideration to him until he frightened them. He tried not to try this. He had no want or cause to frighten them. They weren’t males.
“Would you like some fresh curds? It makes a good breakfast.” She was eyeing him, however not for lengthy, and never assembly his eyes. Like an animal, like a cat, she was, sizing him up however not difficult. There was a cat, a giant gray, sitting on his 4 paws on the fireside gazing on the coals. Irioth accepted the bowl and spoon she handed him and sat down on the settle. The cat jumped up beside him and purred.
“Look at that,” stated the lady. “He’s not friendly with most folk.”
“It’s the curds.”
“He knows a curer, maybe.”
It was peaceable right here with the lady and the cat. He had come to a great home.
“It’s cold out,” she stated. “Ice on the trough this morning. Will you be going on, this day?”
There was a pause. He forgot that he needed to reply in phrases. “I’d stay if I might,” he stated. “I’d stay here.”
He noticed her smile, however she was additionally hesitant, and after some time she stated, “Well, you’re welcome, sir, but I have to ask, can you pay a little?”
“Oh, yes,” he stated, confused, and obtained up and limped again to the bed room for his pouch. He introduced her a bit of cash, a bit of Enladian crownpiece of gold.
“Just for the food and the fire, you know, the peat costs so much now,” she was saying, after which checked out what he provided her.
“Oh, sir,” she stated, and he knew he had achieved mistaken.
“There’s nobody in the village could change that,” she stated. She appeared up into his face for a second. “The whole village together couldn’t change that!” she stated, and laughed. It was all proper, then, although the phrase “change” rang and rang in his head.
“It hasn’t been changed,” he stated, however he knew that was not what she meant. “I’m sorry,” he stated. “If I stayed a month, if I stayed the winter, would that use it up? I should have a place to stay, while I work with the beasts.”
“Put it away,” she stated, with one other snicker, and a flurried movement of her palms. “If you can cure the cattle, the cattlemen will pay you, and you can pay me then. Call that surety, if you like. But put it away, sir! It makes me dizzy to look at it. — Berry,” she stated, as a nobbly, dried-up man got here within the door with a gust of chilly wind, “the gentleman will stay with us while he’s curing the cattle — speed the work! He’s given us surety of payment. So you’ll sleep in the chimney corner, and him in the room. This is my brother Berry, sir.”
Berry ducked his head and muttered. His eyes had been uninteresting. It appeared to Irioth that the person had been poisoned. When Berry went out once more, the lady got here nearer and stated, resolute, in a low voice, “There’s no harm in him but the drink, but there’s not much left of him but the drink. It’s eaten up most of his mind, and most of what we have. So, do you see, put up your money where he won’t see it, if you don’t mind, sir. He won’t come looking for it. But if he saw it, he’d take it. He often doesn’t know what he’s doing, do you see.”
“Yes,” Irioth stated. “I understand. You are a kind woman.” She was speaking about him, about his not figuring out what he was doing. She was forgiving him. “A kind sister,” he stated. The phrases had been so new to him, phrases he had by no means stated or thought earlier than, that he thought he had spoken them within the True Speech, which he should not converse. But she solely shrugged, with a frowning smile.
“Times I could shake his fool head off,” she stated, and went again to her work.
He had not recognized how drained he was till he got here to haven. He spent all that day drowsing earlier than the hearth with the gray cat, whereas Gift went out and in at her work, providing him meals him a number of instances — poor, coarse meals, however he ate all of it, slowly, valuing it. Come night the brother went off, and she or he stated with a sigh, “He’ll run up a whole new line of credit at the tavern on the strength of us having a lodger. Not that it’s your fault.”
“Oh, yes,” Irioth stated. “It was my fault.” But she forgave; and the gray cat was pressed up towards his thigh, dreaming. The cat’s desires got here into his thoughts, within the low fields the place he spoke with the animals, the dusky locations. The cat leapt there, after which there was milk, and the deep mushy thrilling. There was no fault, solely the nice innocence. No want for phrases. They wouldn’t discover him right here. He was not right here to seek out. There was no want to talk any identify. There was no one however her, and the cat dreaming, and the hearth flickering. He had come over the useless mountain on black roads, however right here the streams ran sluggish among the many pastures.
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He was mad, and she or he didn’t know what possessed her to let him keep, but she couldn’t concern him or mistrust him. What did it matter if he was mad? He was light, and might need been smart as soon as, earlier than what occurred to him occurred. And he wasn’t so mad as all that. Mad in patches, mad at moments. Nothing in him was complete, not even his insanity. He couldn’t bear in mind the identify he had instructed her, and instructed individuals within the village to name him Otak. He in all probability couldn’t bear in mind her identify both; he at all times referred to as her mistress. But possibly that was his courtesy. She referred to as him sir, in courtesy, and since neither Gully or Otak appeared names nicely suited to him. An otak, she had heard, was a bit of animal with sharp enamel and no voice, however there have been no such creatures on the High Marsh.
She had thought possibly his discuss of coming right here to treatment the cattle-sickness was one of many mad bits. He didn’t act just like the curers who got here by with cures and spells and salves for the animals. But after he had rested a few days, he requested her who the cattlemen of the village had been, and went off, nonetheless strolling sore-footed, in Bren’s previous sneakers. It made her coronary heart flip in her, seeing that.
He got here again within the night, lamer than ever, for in fact San had walked him filter out into the Long Fields the place most of his beeves had been. Nobody had horses however Alder, and so they had been for his cowboys. She gave her visitor a basin of sizzling water and a clear towel for his poor ft, after which thought to ask him if he would possibly need a bathtub, which he did. They heated the water and stuffed the previous tub, and she or he went into her room whereas he had his bathtub on the fireside. When she got here out it was all cleared away and wiped up, the towels hung earlier than the hearth. She’d by no means recognized a person to take care of issues like that, and who would have anticipated it of a wealthy man? Wouldn’t he have servants, the place he got here from? But he was no extra hassle than the cat. He washed his personal garments, even his bedsheet, had it achieved and frolicked one sunny day earlier than she knew what he was doing. “You needn’t do that, sir, I’ll do your things with mine,” she stated.
“No need,” he stated in that distant approach, as if he hardly knew what she was speaking about; however then he stated, “You work very hard.”
“Who doesn’t? I like the cheese-making. There’s an interest to it. And I’m strong. All I fear is getting old, when I can’t lift the buckets and the molds.” She confirmed him her spherical, muscular arm, making a fist and smiling. “Pretty good for fifty years old!” she stated. It was foolish to boast, however she was happy with her robust arms, her vitality and talent.
“Speed the work,” he stated gravely.
He had a approach together with her cows that was great. When he was there and she or he wanted a hand, he took Berry’s place, and as she instructed her buddy Tawny, laughing, he was cannier with the cows than Bren’s previous canine had been. ”He talks to ’em, and I’ll swear they think about what he says. And that heifer follows him about like a pet.” Whatever he was doing out on the ranges with the beeves, the cattlemen had been coming to suppose nicely of him. Of course they might seize at any promise of assist. Half San’s herd was useless. Alder wouldn’t say what number of head he had misplaced. The our bodies of cattle had been in all places. If it had not been chilly climate the Marsh would have reeked of rotting flesh. None of the water may very well be drunk until you boiled it an hour, besides what got here from the wells, hers right here and the one within the village, which gave the place its identify.
One morning one in every of Alder’s cowboys turned up within the entrance yard driving a horse and main a saddled mule. “Master Alder says Master Otak can ride her, it being a ten-twelve miles out to the East Fields,” the younger man stated.
Her visitor got here out of the home. It was a brilliant, misty morning, the marshes hidden by gleaming vapors. Andanden floated above the mists, an enormous damaged form towards the northern sky.
The curer stated nothing to the cowboy however went straight to the mule, or hinny, moderately, being out of San’s massive jenny by Alder’s white horse. She was a whitey roan, younger, with a fairly face. He went and talked to her for a minute, saying one thing in her massive, delicate ear and rubbing her topknot.
“He does that,” the cowboy stated to Gift. “Talks at ’em.” He was amused, disdainful. He was one in every of Berry’s ingesting mates on the tavern, an honest sufficient younger fellow, for a cowboy.
“Is he curing the cattle?” she requested.
“Well, he can’t lift the murrain all at once. But seems like he can cure a beast if he gets to it before the staggers begin. And those not struck yet, he says he can keep it off ’em. So the master’s sending him all about the range to do what can be done. It’s too late for many.”
The curer checked the girths, eased a strap, and obtained up within the saddle, not expertly, however the hinny made no objection. She turned her lengthy, creamy-white nostril and delightful eyes to take a look at her rider. He smiled. Gift had by no means seen him smile.
“Shall we go?” he stated to the cowboy, who set off directly with a wave to Gift and a snort from his little mare. The curer adopted. The hinny had a easy, long-legged stroll, and her whiteness shone within the morning gentle. Gift thought it was like seeing a prince journey off, like one thing out of a story, the mounted figures that walked by means of brilliant mist throughout the obscure dun of the winter fields, and light into the sunshine, and had been gone.
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It was exhausting work out within the pastures. “Who doesn’t do hard work?” Emer had requested, displaying her spherical, robust arms, her exhausting, pink palms. The cattleman Alder anticipated him to remain out in these meadows till he had touched each residing beast of the nice herds there. Alder had despatched two cowboys alongside. They made a camp of types, with a groundcloth and a half-tent. There was nothing to burn out on the marsh however small brushwood and useless reeds, and the hearth was hardly sufficient to boil water and by no means sufficient to heat a person. The cowboys rode out and tried to spherical up the animals in order that he may come amongst them in a herd, as an alternative of going to them one after the other as they scattered out foraging within the pastures of dry, frosty grass. They couldn’t maintain the cattle bunched for lengthy, and obtained indignant with them and with him for not transferring sooner. It was unusual to him that they’d no endurance with the animals, which they handled as issues, dealing with them as a log rafter handles logs in a river, by mere power.
They had no endurance with him both, at all times at him to rush up and get achieved with the job; nor with themselves, their life. When they talked to one another it was at all times about what they had been going to do on the town, in Oraby, after they obtained paid off. He heard a great deal in regards to the whores in Oraby, Daisy and Goldie and the one they referred to as the Burning Bush. He needed to sit with the younger males as a result of all of them wanted what heat there was to be obtained from the hearth, however they didn’t need him there and he didn’t need to be there with them. In them he knew was a obscure concern of him as a sorcerer, and a jealousy of him, however above all contempt. He was previous, different, not one in every of them. Fear and jealousy he knew and shrank from, and contempt he remembered. He was glad he was not one in every of them, that they didn’t need to discuss to him. He was afraid of doing mistaken to them.
He obtained up within the icy morning whereas they nonetheless slept rolled of their blankets. He knew the place the cattle had been close by, and went to them. The illness was very acquainted to him now. He felt it in his palms as a burning, and a queasiness if it was a lot superior. Approaching one steer that was mendacity down, he discovered himself dizzy and retching. He got here no nearer, however stated phrases which may ease the dying, and went on.
They let him stroll amongst them, wild as they had been and having had nothing from males’s palms however castration and butchery. He had a pleasure of their belief in him, a delight in it. He mustn’t, however he did. If he wished to the touch one of many nice beasts he had solely to face and converse to it a short while within the language of those that don’t converse. “Ulla,” he stated, naming them. “Ellu. Ellua.” They stood, massive, detached; typically one checked out him for a very long time. Sometimes one got here to him with its straightforward, free, majestic tread, and breathed into his open palm. All people who got here to him he may treatment. He laid his palms on them, on the stiff-haired, sizzling flanks and neck, and despatched the therapeutic into his palms with the phrases of energy spoken time and again. After some time the beast would give a shake, or toss its head a bit, or step on. And he would drop his palms and stand there, drained and clean, for some time. Then there could be one other one, massive, curious, shyly daring, muddy-coated, with the illness in it like a prickling, a tingling, a hotness in his palms, a dizziness. “Ellu,” he would say, and stroll to the beast and lay his palms upon it till they felt cool, as if a mountain stream ran by means of them.
The cowboys had been discussing whether or not or not it was fit for human consumption the meat of a steer useless of the murrain. The provide of meals they’d introduced, meager to start out with, was about to expire. Instead of driving twenty or thirty miles to restock, they wished to chop the tongue out of a steer that had died close by that morning.
He had pressured them to boil any water they used. Now he stated, “If you eat that meat, in a year you’ll begin to get dizzy. You’ll end with the blind staggers and die as they do.”
They cursed and sneered, however believed him. He had no thought if what he stated was true. It had appeared true as he stated it. Perhaps he wished to spite them. Perhaps he wished to do away with them.
“Ride back,” he stated. “Leave me here. There’s enough food for one man for three or four days more. The hinny will bring me back.”
They wanted no persuasion. They rode off leaving all the things behind, their blankets, the tent, the iron pot. “How do we get all that back to the village?” he requested the hinny. She taken care of the 2 ponies and stated what hinnies say. “Aaawww!” she stated. She would miss the ponies.
“We have to finish the work here,” he instructed her, and she or he checked out him mildly. All animals had been affected person, however the endurance of the horse form was great, being freely given. Dogs had been loyal, however there was extra of obedience in it. Dogs had been hierarchs, dividing the world into lords and commoners. Horses had been all lords. They agreed to collude. He remembered strolling among the many nice, plumed ft of cart horses, fearless. The consolation of their breath on his head. A very long time in the past. He went to the beautiful hinny and talked to her, calling her his pricey, comforting her in order that she wouldn’t be lonely.
It took him six extra days to get by means of the large herds within the japanese marshes. The final two days he spent driving out to scattered teams of cattle that had wandered up in direction of the ft of the mountain. Many of them weren’t contaminated but, and he may defend them. The hinny carried him bareback and made the going straightforward. But there was nothing left for him to eat. When he rode again to the village he was light-headed and weak-kneed. He took a very long time getting dwelling from Alder’s steady, the place he left the hinny. Emer greeted him and scolded him and tried to make him eat, however he defined that he couldn’t eat but. “As I stayed there in the sickness, in the sick fields, I felt sick. After a while I’ll be able to eat again,” he defined.
“You’re crazy,” she stated, very indignant. It was a candy anger. Why may no more anger be candy?
“At least have a bath!” she stated.
He knew what he smelled like, and thanked her.
“What’s Alder paying you for all this?” she demanded whereas the water was heating. She was nonetheless indignant, talking extra bluntly even than ordinary.
“I don’t know,” he stated.
She stopped and stared at him.
“You didn’t set a price?”
“Set a price?” he flashed out. Then he remembered who he was not, and spoke humbly. “No. I didn’t.”
“Of all the innocence,” Gift stated, hissing the phrase. “He’ll skin you.” She dumped a kettleful of steaming water into the bathtub. “He has ivory,” she stated. “Tell him ivory it has to be. Out there ten days starving in the cold to cure his beasts! San’s got nothing but copper, but Alder can pay you in ivory. I’m sorry if I’m meddling in your business. Sir.” She flung out the door with two buckets, going to the pump. She wouldn’t use the stream water for something in any respect, nowadays. She was smart, and sort. Why had he lived so lengthy amongst those that weren’t form?
“We’ll have to see,” stated Alder, the subsequent day, “if my beasts are cured. If they make it through the winter, see, we’ll know your cures all took, that they’re sound, like. Not that I doubt it, but fair’s fair, right? You wouldn’t ask me to pay you what I have in mind to pay you, would you now, if the cure didn’t take and the beasts died after all. Avert the chance! But I wouldn’t ask you to wait all that time unpaid, neither. So here’s an advance, like, on what’s to come, and all’s square between us for now, right?”
The coppers weren’t decently in a bag, even. Irioth needed to maintain out his hand, and the cattleman laid out six copper pennies in it, one after the other. “Now then! That’s fair and square!” he stated, expansive. “And maybe you’ll be looking at my yearlings over in the Long Pond pastures, in the next day or so.”
“No,” Irioth stated. “San’s herd was going down fast when I left. I’m needed there.”
“Oh, no, you’re not, Master Otak. While you were out in the east range a sorcerer curer came by, a fellow that’s been here before, from the south coast, and so San hired him. You work for me and you’ll be paid well. Better than copper, maybe, if the beasts fare well!”
Irioth didn’t say sure, or no, or thanks, however went off unspeaking. The cattleman taken care of him and spat. “Avert,” he stated.
The hassle rose up in Irioth’s thoughts because it had not achieved since he got here to the High Marsh. He struggled towards it. A person of energy had come to heal the cattle, one other man of energy. But a sorcerer, Alder had stated. Not a wizard, not a mage. Only a curer, a cattle-healer. I don’t must concern him. I don’t must concern his energy. I don’t want his energy. I need to see him, to make certain, to make certain. If he does what I do right here there isn’t any hurt. We can work collectively. If I do what he does right here. If he makes use of solely sorcery and means no hurt. As I do.
He walked down the straggling road of Purewells to San’s home, which was about halfway, reverse the tavern. San, a hardbitten man in his thirties, was speaking to a person on his doorstep, a stranger. When they noticed Irioth they appeared uneasy. San went into his home and the stranger adopted.
Irioth got here up onto the doorstep. He didn’t go in, however spoke within the open door. “Master San, it’s about the cattle you have there between the rivers. I can go to them today.” He didn’t know why he stated this. It was not what he had meant to say.
“Ah,” San stated, coming to the door, and hemmed a bit. “No need, Master Otak. This here is Master Sunbright, come up to deal with the murrain. He’s cured beasts for me before, the hoof rot and all. Being as how you have all one man can do with Alder’s beeves, you see . . . “
The sorcerer came out from behind San. His name was Ayeth. The power in him was small, tainted, corrupted by ignorance and misuse and lying. But the jealousy in him was like a stinging fire. “I’ve been coming doing business here some ten years,” he stated, wanting Irioth up and down. “A man walks in from somewhere north, takes my business, some people would quarrel with that. A quarrel of sorcerers is a bad thing. If you’re a sorcerer, a man of power, that is. I am. As the good people here well know.”
Irioth tried to say he didn’t need a quarrel. He tried to say that there was work for 2. He tried to say he wouldn’t take the person’s work from him. But all these phrases burned away within the acid of the person’s jealousy that may not hear them and burned them earlier than they had been spoken.
Ayeth’s stare grew extra insolent as he watched Irioth stammer. He started to say one thing to San, however Irioth spoke.
“You have —” he stated — “You have to go. Back.” As he stated “Back,” his left hand struck down on the air like a knife, and Ayeth fell backward towards a chair, staring.
He was solely a bit of sorcerer, a dishonest healer with a number of sorry spells. Or so he appeared. What if he was dishonest, hiding his energy, a rival hiding his energy? A jealous rival. He should be stopped, he should be certain, named, referred to as. Irioth started to say the phrases that may bind him, and the shaken man cowered away, shrinking down, shriveling, crying out in a skinny, excessive wail. It is mistaken, mistaken, I’m doing the mistaken, I’m the sick, Irioth thought. He stopped the spellwords in his mouth, preventing towards them, and ultimately crying out one different phrase. Then the person Ayeth crouched there, vomiting and shuddering, and San was staring and attempting to say “Avert! Avert!” And no hurt was achieved. But the hearth burned in his palms, burned his eyes when he tried to cover his eyes in his palms, burned his tongue away when he tried to talk.
“On the High Marsh” (c) 2001 by Ursula Ok. Le Guin. Originally revealed by Harcourt. Excerpt reprinted with permission of the Ursula Ok. Le Guin Literary Trust.
Illustration (c) 2018 by Charles Vess, from The Books of Earthsea, revealed by Saga Press. Used with permission of the artist.
Want to learn extra? Check out the person quantity of Tales from Earthsea in addition to The Books of Earthsea, the entire Saga version that includes Vess’ illustrations.
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