Hawk's Flight

Hawk's Flight marks the crisis of Ged's long ordeal, the moment when his flight from the shadow and from the temptations of the Old Powers reaches its extreme, and he nearly loses himself entirely. It is the turning point that forces him to abandon evasion and, under Ogion's guidance, to turn and hunt the hunter.

The Flight from Osskil

After escaping the Court of the Terrenon, Ged, in a fierce distress and rage, took the shape of a great hawk—not the sparrowhawk he was called, but the Pilgrim Falcon that flies like an arrow. He had used the Changing spell before, but this transformation was different: the falcon's anger and wildness were like his own, and they became his own. His will to fly became the falcon's will. He passed over Enlad, stooping down to drink at a lonely forest pool, but was driven on at once by the fear of the shadow that came behind him. He crossed the great sea-lane called the Jaws of Enlad, and went on and on, east by south, the hills of Oranéa faint to his right and the hills of Andrad fainter to his left, and before him only the sea. In all the sunlight and the dark of that great flight he wore the falcon's wings, and looked through the falcon's eyes, and forgetting his own thoughts he knew at last only what the falcon knows: hunger, the wind, the way he flies.

The Return to Gont and Ogion's Restoration

He flew to the right haven. There were few on Roke and only one on Gont who could have made him back into a man. That one was Ogion the Silent. On a winter morning, as Ogion stood by the spring near his house in Re Albi, a great hawk came down with loud-beating wings and lighted on his wrist. The claws dug hard in Ogion's wrist; the barred wings trembled; the round, gold eye was dull and wild. Ogion spoke gently to the hawk, asking if it were messenger or message. When the hawk looked at him, Ogion was silent a minute, then said, "I named you once, I think." He brought the bird into his house and laid a spell, weaving the web of magic with his hands more than with words. When the spell was whole, he said softly, "Ged," not looking at the falcon. He waited, then turned to the young man who stood trembling and dull-eyed before the fire. Ged was richly and outlandishly dressed in fur and silk and silver, but the clothes were torn and stiff with sea-salt, and he stood gaunt and stooped, his hair lank about his scarred face. Ogion took the soiled, princely cloak off his shoulders, led him to the alcove-room where his prentice once had slept, and made him lie down on the pallet, murmuring a sleep-charm. He had said no word to him, knowing that Ged had no human speech in him now.

The Peril of Transformation

As a boy, Ogion like all boys had thought it a pleasant game to take by art-magic whatever shape one liked, but as a wizard he had learned the price of the game, which is the peril of losing one's self, playing away the truth. The longer a man stays in a form not his own, the greater this peril. Every prentice-sorcerer learns the tale of the wizard Bordger of Way, who delighted in taking bear's shape, and did so more and more often until the bear grew in him and the man died away, and he became a bear, and killed his own little son in the forests, and was hunted down and slain. No one knows how many of the dolphins that leap in the waters of the Inmost Sea were men once, wise men, who forgot their wisdom and their name in the joy of the restless sea. Ged had taken hawk-shape in fierce distress and rage, and when he flew from Osskil there had been but one thought in his mind: to outfly both Stone and shadow, to escape the cold treacherous lands, to go home. The falcon's anger and wildness had become his own, and his will to fly had become the falcon's will.

Ogion's Counsel: The Turning Point

Ged was savage and silent when he woke. Ogion never spoke to him, but gave him meat and water and let him sit hunched by the fire. On the third morning, Ged came to the fireside and said, "Master..." He told his old master the tale of the years since he had sailed from Gont aboard the ship called Shadow. Ogion asked no questions, and when Ged was done he kept silent for a long time. Then he said, "Those are bitter scars you bear, lad." Ged answered, "I have no strength against the thing." Ogion shook his head, then pointed out that Ged had had strength enough to outspell a sorcerer in his own domain in Osskil, to withstand the lures and fend off the attack of the servants of an Old Power of Earth, and to stand up to a dragon at Pendor. Ged replied that it was luck in Osskil, not strength, and that the evil thing, the shadow that hunted him, had no name. Ogion said certainly, "All things have a name." He fell to brooding, and at last said, "You must turn around. If you go ahead, if you keep running, wherever you run you will meet danger and evil, for it drives you, it chooses the way you go. You must choose. You must seek what seeks you. You must hunt the hunter." He spoke of the spring of the River Ar where he had named Ged, and said that a man would know the end he goes to if he does not turn, and return to his beginning, and hold that beginning in his being. "If he would not be a stick whirled and whelmed in the stream, he must be the stream itself, all of it, from its spring to its sinking in the sea. You returned to Gont, you returned to me, Ged. Now turn clear round, and seek the very source, and that which lies before the source. There lies your hope of strength." Ged, terrified, asked where, but Ogion did not answer. Ged argued that if he turned, the hunt would not be long, and that if the shadow defeated him wholly, it would take his knowledge and his power and use them. Ogion acknowledged that was true, but said, "Third time is the charm." Ged paced, then suddenly knelt before the mage and said, "I have walked with great wizards and have lived on the Isle of the Wise, but you are my true master, Ogion." He spoke with love and with a somber joy. Ogion replied, "Good. Now you know it. Better now than never. But you will be my master, in the end."

The New Staff and the Departure

Ogion built up the fire, then went out to look after his goats. When he came back, snow-powdered, he carried a long, rough shaft of yew-wood. All the end of the short afternoon, and again after their supper, he sat working by lampfire on the shaft with knife and rubbing-stone and spell-craft. Many times he passed his hands along the wood as if seeking any flaw. Often as he worked he sang softly. Ged, still weary, listened, and as he grew sleepy he thought himself a child in the witch's hut in Ten Alders village, on a snowy night in the firelit dark, the air heavy with herb-scent and smoke, and his mind all adrift on dreams as he listened to the long soft singing of spells and deeds of heroes who fought against dark powers and won, or lost, on distant islands long ago. Ogion handed the finished staff to him, saying, "The Archmage gave you yew-wood, a good choice and I kept to it. I meant the shaft for a long-bow, but it's better this way. Good night, my son." As Ged turned away, Ogion watched him and said, too soft for Ged to hear, "O my young falcon, fly well!" In the cold dawn when Ogion woke, Ged was gone. He had left a message of silver-scrawled runes on the hearthstone, that faded even as Ogion read them: "Master, I go hunting."