Bargain with Yevaud

Ged had come to Low Torning as its wizard, sent by the Archmage Gensher to protect the westernmost township of the Ninety Isles from the dragons that had spawned on Pendor. But the shadow he had loosed on Roke Knoll was hunting him, and he knew he could not remain trapped on a little island muttering useless spells of lock and ward while the dragon-peril hung over the people he had sworn to defend. He went to the Head Isle-Man and asked leave to go out and do away with the dragons on Pendor, so that his task for the township would be finished and he might leave freely. The Isle-Man stared at him all dropjawed, protesting that there were nine dragons out there, but Ged insisted, and the fishermen watched him go with sullen faces, expecting no news of him again.

The Approach and the First Skirmishes

Ged sailed westward in a small boat, using the magewind for speed, for he feared what was behind him more than what was before him. As he came in sight of the rocks of Pendor, the still streets of the town, and the gutted, falling towers, he summoned the dragon: "Usurper of Pendor, come defend your hoard!" A young dragon flitted up from some roofless ruin like a vast black bat, thin-winged and spiny-backed. Ged laughed and shouted, "Go tell the Old One to come, you wind-worm!" The young dragon was not large of his kind, maybe the length of a forty-oared ship, and had not yet got his growth or any dragon-cunning. Straight at Ged in the small rocking boat he came, opening his long, toothed jaws as he slid down arrowy from the air, so that all Ged had to do was bind his wings and limbs stiff with one sharp spell and send him hurtling aside into the sea like a stone falling. Two more dragons rose up from the base of the highest tower, and even so Ged caught both, hurled both down, and drowned them, without yet having lifted up his wizard's staff. Then three came against him from the island, one much greater, fire spewing curling from its jaws. No binding spell would catch all three, so Ged worked a spell of Changing and flew up from his boat in dragon-form. On the wind over the grey waves they doubled, snapped, swooped, lunged, till smoke roiled about them red-lit by the glare of their fiery mouths. Ged flew suddenly upward and the other pursued, below him; in midflight the dragon-Ged raised wings, stopped, and stooped as the hawk stoops, talons outstretched downward, striking and bearing the other down by neck and flank. The Pendor dragon tore free and flew low and lamely to the island, where it hid. At once Ged took his form and place again on the boat, for it was most perilous to keep that dragon-shape longer than need demanded. His hands were black with the scalding wormblood, and he was scorched about the head with fire.

The Confrontation with the Old Dragon

Ged called out, "Six I have seen, five slain, nine are told of: come out, worms!" No creature moved for a long while, until Ged became aware that the highest tower slowly changed its shape, bulging out on one side as if it grew an arm. What he had taken for a part of the tower was the shoulder of the Dragon of Pendor as he uncurled his bulk and lifted himself slowly up. When he was all afoot, his scaled head, spike-crowned and triple-tongued, rose higher than the broken tower's height, and his taloned forefeet rested on the rubble of the town below. His scales were grey-black, catching the daylight like broken stone. Lean as a hound he was and huge as a hill. Ged stared in awe; there was no song or tale that could prepare the mind for this sight. Almost he stared into the dragon's eyes and was caught, for one cannot look into a dragon's eyes. He glanced away from the oily green gaze that watched him, and held up before him his staff, that looked now like a splinter, like a twig. The dragon spoke in the Old Speech, the tongue of dragons, in which they can lie, twisting true words to false ends. He offered to tell Ged the name of the shadow that hunted him, but Ged, though his heart leaped with sudden hope, set that aside, knowing that even if the dragon spoke truth he did so wholly for his own ends. "I did not come here to play, or to be played with. I came to strike a bargain with you," Ged said. The dragon's tail arched up scorpion-wise over his mailed back, above the tower, and he spoke dryly: "I strike no bargains. I take. What have you to offer that I cannot take from you when I like?" Ged answered, "Safety. Your safety. Swear that you will never fly eastward of Pendor, and I will swear to leave you unharmed." The dragon raised himself up higher, looming over the ruins, fire dancing along his three-forked tongue. "You offer me safety! You threaten me! With what?" Ged spoke the dragon's name: "With your name, Yevaud."

The Oath and Its Consequences

Ged's voice shook as he spoke the name, yet he spoke it clear and loud. At the sound of it, the old dragon held still, utterly still. Ged had staked this venture and his life on a guess drawn from old histories of dragon-lore learned on Roke, a guess that this Dragon of Pendor was the same that had spoiled the west of Osskil in the days of Elfarran and Morred, and had been driven from Osskil by a wizard, Elt, wise in names. The guess had held. "We are matched, Yevaud. You have the strength: I have your name. Will you bargain?" Still the dragon made no reply. Many years had the dragon sprawled on the island where golden breastplates and emeralds lay scattered among dust and bricks and bones; he had watched his black lizard-brood play among crumbling houses and try their wings from the cliffs; he had grown old. It was hard now to stir, to face this mage-lad, this frail enemy, at the sight of whose staff Yevaud winced. He offered Ged his choice of nine stones from his hoard, but Ged refused. The dragon then offered to tell him the name of the shadow that followed him, but Ged, though tempted, held firm: "That is not what I ask for, Yevaud." When he spoke the dragon's name it was as if he held the huge being on a fine, thin leash, tightening it on his throat. He could feel the ancient malice and experience of men in the dragon's gaze, he could see the steel talons each as long as a man's forearm, and the withering fire that lurked in the dragon's throat, and yet always the leash tightened. He spoke again: "Yevaud! Swear by your name that you and your sons will never come to the Archipelago." Flames broke suddenly bright and loud from the dragon's jaws, and he said, "I swear it by my name!" Silence lay over the isle then, and Yevaud lowered his great head. When he raised it again and looked, the wizard was gone, and the sail of the boat was a white fleck on the waves eastward. In rage the old Dragon of Pendor rose up breaking the tower with the writhing of his body, and beating his wings that spanned the whole width of the ruined town. But his oath held him, and he did not fly, then or ever, to the Archipelago.

Aftermath and Significance

When word went out that Ged had returned, five days from his setting forth, the Isle-Men and half the people of the township came rowing and running to gather round him, and stare at him, and listen. Bonfires were burning not only on the isles of Low Torning but in townships to the south and east. Fishermen shouted the news from boat to boat, from isle to isle: Evil is averted, the dragons will never come from Pendor! That one night was joyous for Ged; no shadow could come near him through the brightness of those fires of thanksgiving that burned on every hill and beach, through the circles of laughing dancers that ringed him about, singing his praise, swinging their torches in the gusty autumn night. But the next day he met with Pechvarry, who said, "I did not know you were so mighty, my lord." There was fear in that because he had dared make Ged his friend, but there was reproach in it also: Ged had not saved a little child, though he had slain dragons. After that, Ged felt afresh the unease and impatience that had driven him to Pendor, and drove him now from Low Torning. The bargain with Yevaud was Ged's first great deed as a wizard, a demonstration that true mastery lies not in brute force but in knowledge—specifically, the knowledge of a being's true name, which gives the speaker power over it. It also marked a turning point in his relationship with the shadow, for though he had won a respite and a moment of glory, the hunt was far from over.