Astowell

Astowell, called Lastland by its inhabitants, is the easternmost inhabited island of the East Reach, a place where the known world ends and the Open Sea begins. It appears in the narrative as a crucial waypoint during Ged and Vetch's desperate voyage eastward in pursuit of the shadow, a journey that will ultimately take them beyond all mapped waters into the realm of death itself.

Geography and Isolation

Astowell is a small, rocky island with pinnacled cliffs, its only port a creek-mouth between rocky heights on the northern shore. The island's orientation is telling: all the huts of the town face north and west, as if the island itself turns its face always toward Earthsea, toward mankind, away from the vast emptiness to the east. The people of Astowell are lean and ill-clothed against the cold, and they live in extreme poverty. They have no wood for boats, using only coracles woven of reed, and no sailor among them would venture as far as Gosk or Kornay in such a craft. They have no witch or sorcerer, and seem not to recognize the young wizards' staffs for what they are, admiring them only for the precious material—wood. The islanders have nothing to trade for bronze or fine wares, and ships from Soders or Rolameny visit them only rarely.

The People and Their Chief

The people of Astowell are lean and ill-clothed against the cold, living in extreme poverty. They have no wood for boats, using only coracles woven of reed, and no sailor among them would venture as far as Gosk or Kornay in such a craft. They have no witch or sorcerer, and seem not to recognize the young wizards' staffs for what they are, admiring them only for the precious material—wood. The islanders have nothing to trade for bronze or fine wares, and ships from Soders or Rolameny visit them only rarely. The old Isle-Man, their chief, is very old, and he alone of his people has ever before seen a man born in the Archipelago. Ged, therefore, is a marvel to them; the men bring their little sons to look at the Archipelagan, so they might remember him when they are old. They have never heard of Gont, only of Havnor and Éa, and take him for a Lord of Havnor. Ged does his best to answer their questions about the white city he has never seen.

The Question of What Lies East

As the evening wears on, Ged grows restless and asks the men of the village, gathered in the lodgehouse, what lies eastward of their land. They fall silent, some grinning, others grim. The old Isle-Man answers, "The sea." When Ged presses, asking if there is no land beyond, the chief replies, "This is Lastland. There is no land beyond. There is nothing but water till world's edge." A younger man suggests that the strangers, being wise seafarers and voyagers, might know of a land the islanders do not. But the old man looks long at Ged and speaks no more to him. The companions sleep that night in the smoky warmth of the lodge, but before daylight Ged rouses his friend, whispering that they cannot stay, that he has followed too slow and the shadow has found a way to escape him. They leave the lodge before any in the village is awake, except a baby that cries a little in the darkness of some hut and falls still again. By vague starlight they find the way down to the creek-mouth, untie Lookfar from the rock cairn, and push her out into the black water, setting out eastward from Astowell into the Open Sea on the first day of the Fallows, before sunrise.

Narrative Significance

Astowell represents the last outpost of the human world, the final point where the known geography of Earthsea gives way to the uncharted. It is here that Ged receives the definitive answer that no land lies to the east, yet he must go anyway, driven by the bond that now ties him to the shadow. The island's poverty and isolation, its people's ignorance of the wider world, and their fear of what lies beyond all underscore the extremity of Ged's quest. The old chief's refusal to speak further after looking at Ged suggests a recognition of the doom the young wizard carries, a doom that has no place in the simple, hard lives of Lastland's people. Astowell thus serves as a threshold, the last place where the rules of the ordinary world apply before Ged and Vetch cross into the realm of the shadow and the dry land of death.