Confrontation with the gebbeth

The confrontation on the Keksemt Moors marks the moment when the shadow, having pursued Ged across the Osskil Sea, finally seizes a human vessel and attacks him directly, stripping him of his magical defenses and forcing him into a desperate physical flight. It is the first time the shadow acts through a gebbeth—a possessed human body—and the first time it speaks Ged's true name aloud, a revelation that paralyzes his power and confirms the depth of its hold over him.

The Trap on the Moors

After disembarking from the Osskilian longship in Neshum, Ged finds himself in a strange and hostile land. Knowing neither the language nor the way to the Court of the Terrenon, he is forced to accept guidance from Skiorh, the same crewman who had earlier jeered at him aboard the ship. Skiorh leads him across the bleak Keksemt Moors, a waste of thin snow and leafless bushes under a darkening sky. As they walk for hours, Ged grows drowsy and disoriented, his caution dulled by the long weariness of the voyage. The otak stirs in his pocket, and a vague fear wakes in his mind. He forces himself to speak, asking how far they have to go. Skiorh answers without turning, "Not far." But his voice sounds not like a man's voice, but like a beast, hoarse and lipless, that tries to speak.

The Gebbeth Revealed

Ged stops. All around stretch empty hills in the late dusk light. Sparse snow whirls as it falls. He calls out "Skiorh!" and the other halts and turns. There is no face under the peaked hood. Before Ged can speak a spell or summon power, the gebbeth speaks in its hoarse voice, calling him by his true name: "Ged!" At that sound, Ged is locked in his true being, unable to work any transformation or summon any help in this alien land. He stands alone, with nothing between him and his enemy but the staff of yew-wood in his right hand.

The Attack and the Failed Defense

The thing that has devoured Skiorh's mind and possessed his flesh makes the body take a step toward Ged, its arms groping out. Filled with a rage of horror, Ged swings his staff and brings it down whistling on the hood that hides the shadow-face. The hood and cloak collapse nearly to the ground under that fierce blow, as if there is nothing in them but wind, then writhing and flapping, they stand up again. The body of a gebbeth has been drained of true substance and is something like a shell or a vapor in the form of a man, an unreal flesh clothing the shadow which is real. Jerking and billowing as if blown on the wind, the shadow spreads its arms and comes at Ged, trying to get hold of him as it had held him on Roke Knoll. If it does, it will cast aside the husk of Skiorh and enter into Ged, devouring him from within, owning him—which is its whole desire. Ged strikes at it again with his heavy, smoking staff, beating it off, but it comes again and he strikes again, and then drops the staff that blazes and smolders, burning his hand.

The Flight to the Gate

Backing away, Ged turns and runs. The gebbeth follows a pace behind him, unable to outrun him yet never dropping behind. Ged never looks back. He runs through the vast dusk land where there is no hiding place. Once the gebbeth in its hoarse whistling voice calls him again by name, but though it has taken his wizard's power, it has no power over his body's strength and cannot make him stop. Night thickens about the hunter and the hunted, and snow blows fine across the path that Ged can no longer see. The pulse hammers in his eyes, the breath burns in his throat; he is no longer really running but stumbling and staggering ahead. Yet the tireless pursuer seems unable to catch up, coming always just behind him. It begins to whisper and mumble at him, calling to him, and he knows that all his life that whispering has been in his ears, just under the threshold of hearing. Now he can hear it, and he must yield, he must give in, he must stop. Yet he labors on, struggling up a long, dim slope. He thinks there is a light somewhere before him, and he thinks he hears a voice in front of him, above him somewhere, calling, "Come! Come!" He tries to answer but has no voice. The pale light grows certain, shining through a gateway straight before him. At the sight of it he halts, and the gebbeth snatches at his cloak, fumbles at his sides trying to catch hold of him from behind. With the last strength in him, Ged plunges through that faint-shining door. He tries to turn to shut it behind him against the gebbeth, but his legs will not hold him up. He staggers, reaching for support. Lights swim and flash in his eyes. He feels himself falling, and he feels himself caught even as he falls; but his mind, utterly spent, slides away into the dark.