Hoeg

Hoeg is the small, fierce, silent otak who becomes Ged's loyal companion, following him from Roke through his darkest trials and ultimately giving its life to save him from the shadow.

Identity and First Meeting

Hoeg is an otak, a rare creature found only on four southern isles of the Archipelago: Roke, Ensmer, Pody, and Wathort. These animals are small and sleek, with broad faces, fur of dark brown or brindle, and great bright eyes. Their teeth are cruel and their temper fierce, so they are not made pets of. They have no call or cry or any voice. Ged first encountered Hoeg on a winter morning after a night spent sheltering under a pendick-tree during a rainstorm. Waking at dawn, he found the little creature curled up asleep in the folds of his cloak, having crept there for warmth. Ged stroked it, and it woke and yawned, showing a small brown tongue and white teeth, but it was not afraid. He called it by its true name in the Old Speech, "Hoeg," and asked, "Do you want to come with me?" The otak sat itself down on his open hand and began to wash its fur. He put it up on his shoulder in the folds of his hood, and there it rode. Sometimes during the day it jumped down and darted off into the woods, but it always came back to him, once with a woodmouse it had caught.

Life with Ged at Roke

Hoeg rode on Ged's shoulder, nestling in the fold of his hood, as they sat at dinner at the long tables set up for the Festival of Sunreturn in the Hearth Hall. Vetch marveled at the little creature, and once put up his hand to stroke it, but the otak snapped its sharp teeth at him. Vetch laughed and said, "They say, Sparrowhawk, that a man favored by a wild beast is a man to whom the Old Powers of stone and spring will speak in human voice." Jasper mocked the otak, saying he had never heard of any sorcerer keeping a rat in his hood. Tales grew up among the students that the otak was a disguised spirit who whispered wisdom in Ged's ear. When Ged was sent to the Isolate Tower to study with the Master Namer, Hoeg stayed with him, and when he returned to the Great House for the Festival of Sunreturn, it was still riding on his shoulder.

The Loosing of the Shadow

On the night of the Long Dance, when Ged challenged Jasper and attempted to summon the spirit of Elfarran on Roke Knoll, the spell went terribly wrong. A shadow-beast, shapeless and hideous, leaped out at Ged's face. As Ged fell, struggling and writhing, the little otak, watching from Vetch's shoulder, screamed aloud—the animal that had no voice—and leaped as if to attack. After the Archmage Nemmerle drove the shadow away, the otak cowered by Ged's shoulder, quivering. Ged lay blind and dumb in fever, and the otak stayed with him. When Vetch visited Ged before leaving Roke, he brought the otak with him, saying, "He stayed with me while you were sick, and now I'm sorry to part with him." Vetch patted the otak and set it down on the floor. It went and sat on Ged's pallet, and began to wash its fur with a dry brown tongue like a little leaf.

The Healing Touch and the Boundary Encounter

When Ged attempted to save the dying child Ioeth in Low Torning, he followed the child's spirit to the boundary wall between life and death. There he encountered the shadow, which waited for him on the side of the living. He leaped back across the wall, and the staff burned white. He fell, cold and lifeless. The little otak was hiding in the rafters of the house, as it did when strangers entered. There it stayed while the rain beat on the walls and the fire sank down. Then the otak crept down and came to Ged where he lay stretched stiff and still upon the bed. It began to lick his hands and wrists, long and patiently, with its dry leaf-brown tongue. Crouching beside his head it licked his temple, his scarred cheek, and softly his closed eyes. Very slowly under that soft touch Ged roused. He woke, not knowing where he had been or where he was or what was the faint grey light in the air about him, which was the light of dawn coming to the world. Then the otak curled up near his shoulder as usual, and went to sleep. Later, Ged knew that had none touched him when he lay thus spirit-lost, had none called him back in some way, he might have been lost for good. It was only the dumb instinctive wisdom of the beast who licks his hurt companion to comfort him, and yet in that wisdom Ged saw something akin to his own power, something that went as deep as wizardry. From that time forth he believed that the wise man is one who never sets himself apart from other living things, whether they have speech or not.

Death and Legacy

When Ged fled the Court of the Terrenon in Osskil, he found the otak lying half buried in snow, a few paces from the gate. Its fine short fur was all clogged with blood and its small body was light and stiff and cold in his hands. The otak had followed him even there, and had been killed, likely by the servants of the Stone or by the shadow itself. Ged's anger at this death fueled his transformation into a hawk and his escape. Later, when he was whole and free after the final confrontation with the shadow on the Open Sea, he wept like a boy, and the memory of the otak's loyalty was part of the healing. The otak's silent, fierce devotion was a constant thread through Ged's darkest hours, a reminder of the bond between all living things that he came to value above all power.