The Farthest Shore by Ursula K. Le Guin Page B

woke while they were there—and ran? Why?”
    “To get them away from you.” The surprise in Sparrowhawk’s voice suddenly struck Arren’s pride, and he added fiercely, “I thought it was you they were after. I thought they might kill you. I grabbed their bag so they’d follow me, and shouted out and ran. And they did follow me.”
    “Aye—they would!” That was all Sparrowhawk said, no word of praise, though he sat and thought awhile. Then he said, “Did it not occur to you I might be dead already?”
    “No.”
    “Murder first and rob after, is the safer course.”
    “I didn’t think of that. I only thought of getting them away from you.”
    “Why?”
    “Because you might be able to defend us, to get us both out of it, if you had time to wake up. Or get yourself out of it, anyway. I was on guard, and I failed my guard. I tried to make up for it. You are the one I was guarding. You are the one that matters. I’malong to guard, or whatever you need—it’s you who’ll lead us, who can get to wherever it is we must go, and put right what’s gone wrong.”
    “Is it?” said the mage. “I thought so myself, until last night. I thought I had a follower, but I followed you, my lad.” His voice was cool and perhaps a little ironic. Arren did not know what to say. He was indeed completely confused. He had thought that his fault of falling into sleep or trance on guard could scarcely be atoned by his feat of drawing off the robbers from Sparrowhawk: it now appeared that the latter had been a silly act, whereas going into trance at the wrong moment had been wonderfully clever.
    “I am sorry, my lord,” he said at last, his lips rather stiff and the need to cry not easily controlled again, “that I failed you. And you have saved my life—”
    “And you mine, maybe,” said the mage harshly. “Who knows? They might have slit my throat when they were done. No more of that, Arren. I am glad you are with me.”
    He went to their stores-box then and lit their little charcoal stove and busied himself with something. Arren lay and watched the stars, and his emotions cooled and his mind ceased racing. And he saw then that what he had done and what he had not done were not going to receive judgment from Sparrowhawk. He had done it; Sparrowhawk accepted it as done. “I do not punish,” he had said, cold-voiced, to Egre. Neither did he reward. But he had come for Arren in all haste across the sea, unleashing the power ofhis wizardry for his sake; and he would do so again. He was to be depended on.
    He was worth all the love Arren had for him, and all the trust. For the fact was that he trusted Arren. What Arren did was right.
    He came back now, handing Arren a cup of steaming hot wine. “Maybe that’ll put you to sleep. Take care, it’ll scald your tongue.”
    “Where did the wine come from? I never saw a wineskin aboard—”
    “There’s more in Lookfar than meets the eye,” Sparrowhawk said, sitting down again beside him, and Arren heard him laugh, briefly and almost silently, in the dark.
    Arren sat up to drink the wine. It was very good, refreshing body and spirit. He said, “Where are we going now?”
    “Westward.”
    “Where did you go with Hare?”
    “Into the darkness. I never lost him, but he was lost. He wandered on the outer borders, in the endless barrens of delirium and nightmare. His soul piped like a bird in those dreary places, like a seagull crying far from the sea. He is no guide. He has always been lost. For all his craft in sorcery he has never seen the way before him, seeing only himself.”
    Arren did not understand all of this; nor did he want to understand it, now. He had been drawn a little way into that “darkness” of which wizards spoke, and he did not want to remember it; itwas nothing to do with him. Indeed he did not want to sleep, lest he see it again in dream and see that dark figure, a shadow holding out a pearl, whispering, “Come.”
    “My lord,” he said, his mind