Gebbeth

A gebbeth is the horrifying result of the shadow's possession of a living human being. The shadow, a nameless entity of unlife loosed by Ged's prideful summoning on Roke Knoll, cannot exist fully in the sunlit world on its own. To act in the daylight, it must consume a human mind and inhabit a human body, turning the victim into a gebbeth—a puppet drained of true substance, a mere shell or vapor in the form of a man, animated by the shadow's will.

Nature and Origin

The Archmage Gensher first warned Ged of this fate, explaining that if the shadow ever caught him, it would "enter into you, and possess you. You would be no man but a gebbeth, a puppet doing the will of that evil shadow which you raised up into the sunlight." The transformation is a complete devouring of the self: the victim's mind is destroyed, and the body becomes an unreal flesh clothing the shadow, which is the only real thing. The gebbeth's body has been "drained of true substance" and is "something like a shell or a vapor in the form of a man." The shadow can only speak with a borrowed tongue, using the gebbeth's voice, and its own form is hidden—when Ged struck the gebbeth's hood, it collapsed as if there was nothing inside but wind, then "writhing and flapping stood up again."

The Gebbeth Skiorh

The only gebbeth Ged encounters is Skiorh, an Osskilian oarsman from the ship that carried Ged to Osskil. Skiorh had jeered at Ged during the voyage, and Ged had glimpsed a disturbing change in his face—"a slurring and shifting of the features, as if for a moment something had changed him, used him, looking out through his eyes sidelong at Ged." This was the shadow beginning to take hold. On the Keksemt Moors, Skiorh, now fully a gebbeth, led Ged toward the Court of the Terrenon. When Ged stopped and called his name, the man turned, and "there was no face under the peaked hood." The gebbeth spoke in a hoarse, lipless voice, calling Ged by his true name—"Ged!"—and thereby locking him in his true being, preventing him from using any wizardry. The gebbeth then attacked, its arms groping out, and Ged struck it with his staff, but the blow only collapsed the empty cloak. The shadow, using the gebbeth's form, tried to seize Ged and enter him, but Ged fought it off and fled. The gebbeth pursued him tirelessly, whispering and calling his name, until Ged escaped through the gate of the Court of the Terrenon. Later, the shadow abandoned Skiorh's body, and when Ged next saw the shadow on the sea, it had "done with the body of the Osskilian oarsman Skiorh, and not as gebbeth did it follow him."

The Shadow's Use of Gebbeths

The gebbeth is not the shadow's only form, but it is its most direct method of acting in the world. The shadow can also appear as a shapeless clot of darkness, a beast, or a man-shaped shadow, but the gebbeth allows it to move, speak, and physically attack. Vetch warned Ged to "beware meeting it in gebbeth-form a second time," but Ged believed that after their confrontation on the moors, the shadow was bound to him and could not get free enough to seize another man and empty him of will and being as it had done to Skiorh. The shadow's ultimate goal was always to possess Ged himself, not merely to use a temporary vessel. The gebbeth is a tool, a disposable husk, and the shadow's true desire is to merge with its creator.

The Shadow's Other Manifestations

Before and after its use of Skiorh, the shadow appeared in other forms. On Roke Knoll, it was a "lump of shadow" like a black beast with four taloned paws. In Ged's dreams, it was a bear with no head or face. At the boundary wall between life and death, it was a shapeless, whispering shadow. On the Open Sea, it took on a man-like shape, though it cast no shadow and the rain blew through it. In the final confrontation on the Dry Land, it shifted through many forms—an old man, Jasper, Pechvarry, Skiorh, a monster—before becoming a blind, unformed creature. All these forms were temporary; only the gebbeth was a sustained possession of a living human.

The End of the Gebbeth

The gebbeth Skiorh was ultimately discarded. After Ged escaped into the Court of the Terrenon, the shadow no longer needed the body. When Ged later summoned the shadow on the sea, it came not as a gebbeth but as a dim, man-like shape pacing on the waves. The gebbeth was a stage in the shadow's evolution, a way for it to gain strength and pursue Ged, but it was never the shadow's final form. The shadow's true nature was revealed only when it merged with Ged, speaking his name and becoming one with him, ending the need for any borrowed vessel.