Refusal of the Terrenon

Ged, having been saved from the gebbeth and brought to the Court of the Terrenon in Osskil, finds himself in a tower-keep ruled by Lord Benderesk and his lady Serret. The keep is named for the Terrenon, a stone that Serret describes as a jewel made before Segoy raised the islands of the world, which can answer any question according to the power of the one who asks. Serret leads Ged through three locked doors—the first with a silver key, the second with a gold key, and the third with a Great Word of unbinding—to a small dungeon-like cell where the stone lies, a rough unshapen paving-stone that Ged's wizard's eye immediately recognizes as the founding-stone of the tower, a very ancient and terrible spirit imprisoned in the block. He feels the power of it as if it spoke to him aloud, and a sickness comes over him; the room is bitter cold, and nothing could ever warm it. Serret points out the stone and asks if he will ask a question of it, but Ged answers, "No." When she presses him, suggesting it might tell him how to defeat his enemy, he replies, "There is no question I would ask it." Serret asks if he fears the stone, and he answers, "Yes." He tells her that the spirit is sealed in a stone and locked by binding-spell and blinding-spell and charm of lock and ward and triple fortress-walls not because it is precious, but because it can work great evil, and warns her that she who is young and gentle-hearted should never touch the thing or even look on it. She reveals that she has touched it and spoken to it, and it does her no harm. Later, Serret speaks to Ged alone in a curving hall of grey marble, telling him that Benderesk cannot use the stone nor make it wholly serve his will, but that Ged has the skill and power to master it. She claims the stone itself spoke of his coming and has waited for him, and that he who can make the Terrenon answer what he asks will have power over his own destiny, strength to crush any enemy, foresight, knowledge, wealth, dominion, and a wizardry that could humble the Archmage himself. She holds his hand and whispers that he will be mightier than all men, a king among men, and that she will rule with him. Ged, seeing Benderesk listening and smiling, suddenly stands up and his eyes clear. He says, "It is light that defeats the dark," stammering. He realizes how he has been drawn and lured there, how they used his fear to lead him on, and how they would have kept him: they saved him from the shadow not out of kindness but because they did not want him possessed until he had become a slave of the Stone. He understands that if he had once touched the Stone or spoken to it, he would have been utterly lost. He had almost yielded, but not quite; he had not consented. The narrative observes that it is very hard for evil to take hold of the unconsenting soul. Ged stands between the two who had yielded and consented, looking from Serret to Benderesk as the lord comes forward. Benderesk, enraged, begins a spell of Changing to transform Serret into a hideous thing, but Ged steps forward and strikes the lord's hands down, saying one short word, and his will prevails, leaving Benderesk still and hateful. Serret then seizes Ged's hand and they flee the tower, escaping through the enchanted gate. Ged's refusal of the Terrenon is a decisive moral and spiritual turning point: he rejects the easy, dark path of using an Old Power to defeat his enemy, choosing instead the harder, uncertain path of confronting the shadow on his own terms, guided by the principle that light defeats dark. This act of refusal, rooted in the wisdom Ogion taught him about the Balance and the danger of using powers beyond human control, preserves his soul from enslavement and sets him on the course that will ultimately lead to his integration and wholeness.