Death of Archmage Nemmerle

The death of Archmage Nemmerle, the Warder of Roke, is the immediate and irreversible consequence of his intervention to save Ged from the shadow-beast Ged had summoned on Roke Knoll. Nemmerle spent all his power to drive off the shadow and check the ungoverned spell, an act that drained his bodily strength and left him dying. His passing marks the end of an era for the School for Wizards on Roke and deepens Ged's burden of guilt, as the young wizard must live with the knowledge that his pride and folly cost the life of the wisest and oldest mage in Earthsea.

The Rescue and the Cost

On the night of the Long Dance, after Ged's reckless summoning of the spirit Elfarran tore open the fabric of the world on Roke Knoll, a shapeless clot of black shadow leaped from the breach and clung to Ged, tearing at his flesh. The other boys fled, and Jasper bent down hiding his eyes from the terrible light. Only Vetch ran forward, but before he could touch the thing, he was bound still, unable to move. Then the Archmage Nemmerle appeared, his cloak glimmering pale in the moonrise. The end of his staff hovered silvery above Ged's breast; once gently it touched him over the heart, once on the lips, while Nemmerle whispered. Ged stirred, and his lips parted gasping for breath. Then the old Archmage lifted the staff, and set it to earth, and leaned heavily on it with bowed head, as if he had scarcely strength to stand. To check the ungoverned spell and drive off the shadow from Ged, Nemmerle had spent all his power, and with it his bodily strength was gone.

The Dying Mage

Not far away, in the unroofed court where the fountain played, the Archmage lay also unmoving, but cold, very cold: only his eyes lived, watching the fall of moonlit water and the stir of moonlit leaves. Those with him said no spells and worked no healing. Quietly they spoke among themselves from time to time, and then turned again to watch their Lord. He lay still, hawk nose and high forehead and white hair bleached by moonlight all to the color of bone. The death of a great mage, who has many times in his life walked on the dry steep hillsides of death's kingdom, is a strange matter: for the dying man goes not blindly, but surely, knowing the way. When Nemmerle looked up through the leaves of the tree, those with him did not know if he watched the stars of summer fading in daybreak, or those other stars, which never set above the hills that see no dawn. The raven of Osskil that had been his pet for thirty years was gone. No one had seen where it went. "It flies before him," the Master Patterner said, as they kept vigil.

The Tolling of the Bells and the Choosing of a Successor

The day came warm and clear. The Great House and the streets of Thwil were hushed. No voice was raised, until along towards noon iron bells spoke out aloud in the Chanter's Tower, harshly tolling. On the next day the Nine Masters of Roke gathered in a place somewhere under the dark trees of the Immanent Grove. Even there they set nine walls of silence about them, that no person or power might speak to them or hear them as they chose from amongst the mages of all Earthsea him who would be the new Archmage. Gensher of Way was chosen. A ship was sent forth at once across the Inmost Sea to Way Island to bring the Archmage back to Roke. The Master Windkey stood in the stern and raised up the magewind into the sail, and quickly the ship departed, and was gone.

The Legacy of Guilt

Of these events Ged knew nothing. For four weeks of that hot summer he lay blind, and deaf, and mute, though at times he moaned and cried out like an animal. When he finally recovered enough to offer his fealty to the new Archmage Gensher, Gensher told him bluntly, "Better I had died," Ged said. "Who are you to judge that, you for whom Nemmerle gave his life?" Gensher replied. The old Archmage's sacrifice became a permanent weight on Ged's conscience, a reminder that his pride and hate had caused the death of the wisest and most powerful mage in the world. The shadow Nemmerle had driven off had no name, Gensher explained, and it was the shadow of Ged's own arrogance and ignorance. Nemmerle's death was not a clean end but a transfer of burden: the old mage had given his life to give Ged a second chance, and Ged would have to live with that debt.