Temptation at the Court of the Terrenon

The Temptation at the Court of the Terrenon is the pivotal moment in Ged's early life when, having fled the shadow that hunts him across the sea to the bleak land of Osskil, he is offered a shortcut to power by the Lady Serret—a woman he had met years before as a girl in Re Albi—and must choose between the seductive promise of the ancient Stone called the Terrenon and the hard, patient wisdom of his master Ogion. The event tests his deepest fears and desires, and his refusal of the Stone marks the first true turning of his will against the forces that have driven him, setting him on the path to confront, rather than flee, his own shadow.

The Stone and the Offer

Serret, now the wife of the aged Lord Benderesk, reveals to Ged the nature of the Terrenon, a stone that lies in a locked dungeon-cell deep beneath the tower, behind three doors unlocked with a silver key, a gold key, and a Great Word of unbinding. The stone is rough and unshapen, but Ged's wizard's eye feels its power as if it spoke to him aloud; a sickness comes over him, and he recognizes it as a very ancient thing, an old and terrible spirit prisoned in that block of stone. Serret tells him that the Stone was made before Segoy raised the islands of the world, that it will endure until the end of the world, and that if he lays his hand upon it and asks a question, it will answer according to the power that is in him. She claims it told of his coming long before he arrived in Osskil. When Ged refuses to ask it a question, she presses him, asking if he fears the stone, and he answers, "Yes." Serret then reveals that she has touched the Stone and spoken to it, and that it does her no harm. Later, she speaks more frankly, telling Ged that Benderesk cannot use the Stone wholly, nor can she alone or with him, but that Ged has both the skill and the power. She says the Stone knows its master and has waited for him to come, 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 tells him that the man who spoke to him in Orrimy was a messenger, a servant of the Terrenon, a wizard once himself who threw away his staff to serve a power greater than any mage's. She argues that only shadow can fight shadow, only darkness can defeat the dark, and that the Terrenon, which knows all births and deaths and beings before and after death, will tell him the shadow's name. When Ged asks the price, she insists there is none, that the Stone will obey him as his slave.

The Refusal and the Revelation

Shaken and tormented, Ged does not answer. Serret holds his hand in both of hers, looking into his face, and whispers that he will be mightier than all men, a king among men, and that she will rule with him. At that moment, Ged stands up and sees, just around the curve of the long room's wall, beside the door, the Lord of the Terrenon, Benderesk, who stands listening and smiling a little. Ged's eyes clear, and his mind. He looks down at Serret and says, stammering, "It is light that defeats the dark." As he speaks, he sees plainly how he has been drawn here, lured here, how they used his fear to lead him on, and how they would, once they had him, have kept him. They had saved him from the shadow, indeed, for they did not want him to be possessed by the shadow until he had become a slave of the Stone. Once his will was captured by the power of the Stone, then they would let the shadow into the walls, for a gebbeth was a better slave even than a man. If he had once touched the Stone, or spoken to it, he would have been utterly lost. Yet, even as the shadow had not quite been able to catch up with him and seize him, so the Stone had not been able to use him—not quite. He had almost yielded, but not quite. He had not consented. It is very hard for evil to take hold of the unconsenting soul.

The Escape and the Transformation

Benderesk, enraged, begins a spell of Changing, raising his long hands to shape Serret into some hideous thing, but Ged steps forward and strikes the lord's hands down with his own, saying only one short word, and though he has no staff and stands on alien and evil ground, his will prevails. Benderesk stands still, his clouded eyes fixed hateful and unseeing upon Serret. Serret, in a shaking voice, urges Ged to come quick before Benderesk can summon the Servants of the Stone. A dry trembling murmur runs through the tower, as if the earth itself should speak. Serret seizes Ged's hand and runs with him through the passages and halls, down the long twisted stairs. In the courtyard, three castle-servants bar their way, but Serret speaks in the sibilant Osskilian speech, and the men fall back from her, writhing, and one screams aloud. She tells Ged she has run hot lead in the marrow of their bones, that they will die of it. Ged leads her through the enchanted gate, speaking a word of Opening. As they pass through the doorway out of the silvery twilight of the Court of the Terrenon, Serret changes; she is not less beautiful, but there is a fierce witch-look to her beauty, and Ged knows her at last—the daughter of the Lord of Re Albi, daughter of a sorceress of Osskil, who had mocked him in the green meadows above Ogion's house long ago, and had sent him to read that spell which loosed the shadow. Outside the gate, Ged finds the otak, its fine short fur clogged with blood, its small body light and stiff and cold in his hands. As dark creatures from the tower swoop down, Serret shrieks at Ged to change himself, and she herself shrinks into a grey gull and flies. But Ged stoops and plucks a blade of wild grass from the snow where the otak had lain dead, and speaks aloud to it in the True Speech. The blade lengthens and thickens, and when he is done he holds a great staff, a wizard's staff, in his hand. It blazes with white magefire that does not burn but drives away the dark. He fights off the creatures, and then, taking the shape of a great hawk—the Pilgrim Falcon—he flies after them, but they have already caught and killed Serret in her gull-shape. The creatures of the Stone will not cross over the sea, being bound each to an isle, a certain place, cave or stone or welling spring, and they turn back. But Ged goes on, falcon-winged, falcon-mad, like an unfalling arrow, over the Osskil Sea and eastward into the wind of winter and the night.

Consequences and Aftermath

Ged's flight as a hawk carries him across the sea to Gont, where he is restored to human form by Ogion. The experience at the Court of the Terrenon has deepened his understanding of the nature of evil and the importance of consent. He has learned that the Old Powers of earth are not for men to use, and that they work only ruin. He has also learned that Serret, who had first mocked him and sent him to read the summoning spell that loosed the shadow, was the same woman who now tried to lure him to the Stone. The death of the otak, the little silent soul that once had led him back from death's dominion, is a profound loss. But Ged has also gained a new staff, made from a blade of wild grass and his own anger, and he has proven that he can resist the most powerful temptations. The event marks the end of his flight and the beginning of his hunt: he will no longer run from the shadow, but will turn and seek it out. Ogion tells him, "You must turn around. You must seek what seeks you. You must hunt the hunter." Ged leaves a message on the hearthstone: "Master, I go hunting."