Summoning of Elfarran

The Summoning of Elfarran is the catastrophic magical event on Roke Knoll during the Long Dance festival in which Ged, goaded by Jasper's taunts, attempts to summon the spirit of the legendary Elfarran from the dead, but instead tears open the fabric of the world and looses a nameless shadow-beast that attacks him, an act that leads to the death of Archmage Nemmerle and sets Ged on a lifelong quest to confront and reintegrate his own shadow.

Background and Provocation

The event was the culmination of a long, bitter rivalry between Ged and Jasper, a polished older student from the Domain of Eolg on Havnor. Jasper had mocked Ged since his first day at the School for Wizards on Roke, calling him "Goatherd" and belittling his Gontish origins. During the Long Dance festival, a rare celebration that fell together with the Moon's Night for the first time in fifty-two years, the two young men clashed openly. Jasper, now a sorcerer wearing a silver clasp at his neck, dismissed Ged as a mere prentice and challenged him to prove his power. Ged, stung by the insult and driven by pride, accepted the challenge and declared he would summon a spirit from the dead. Vetch, Ged's loyal friend, tried to intervene, warning that duels in sorcery were forbidden on Roke, but Ged was beyond reason. He handed his pet otak, Hoeg, to Vetch and strode toward Roke Knoll, the ancient hill whose roots were said to reach down to the center of the earth.

The Summoning and the Breach

On the east slope of Roke Knoll, under a starry summer night before moonrise, Ged stood apart from the other boys and began the invocation. He had first read the runes of this Spell of Summoning two years earlier in Ogion's book, in darkness, and had never seen them since. Now, in the darkness, he read them again as if the page were open before him, understanding at last what he read. He spoke the words aloud, weaving the spell with his voice and the motion of his body and hand. The wind rose roaring in the grass. Ged dropped to his knees and called out aloud, then fell forward as if to embrace the earth, and when he rose he held something dark in his straining hands and arms, something so heavy that he shook with effort. The hot wind whined in the black tossing grasses. He cried the name "Elfarran" three times. The shapeless mass of darkness he had lifted split apart, and a pale spindle of light gleamed between his opened arms, a faint oval reaching from the ground to the height of his raised hands. In that oval, for a moment, there moved a human shape: a tall woman looking back over her shoulder, her face beautiful, sorrowful, and full of fear. But the sallow oval between Ged's arms grew bright, widened, and spread—a rent in the darkness of the earth and night, a ripping open of the fabric of the world. Through that bright, misshapen breach clambered something like a clot of black shadow, quick and hideous, and it leaped straight out at Ged's face.

The Attack and Nemmerle's Sacrifice

Staggering back under the weight of the thing, Ged gave a short, hoarse scream. The little otak, which had no voice, screamed aloud also and leaped as if to attack. Ged fell, struggling and writhing, while the bright rip in the world's darkness above him widened and stretched. The boys that watched fled; Jasper bent down to the ground, hiding his eyes from the terrible light. Vetch alone ran forward to his friend. He saw the lump of shadow that clung to Ged, tearing at his flesh—a black beast the size of a young child, with no head or face, only four taloned paws with which it gripped and tore. Vetch sobbed with horror, yet put out his hands to try to pull the thing away, but before he touched it, he was bound still, unable to move. The intolerable brightness faded, and slowly the torn edges of the world closed together. Nearby, a voice was speaking as softly as a tree whispers or a fountain plays. Starlight began to shine again, and the grasses of the hillside were whitened with the light of the moon just rising. The shadow-beast was gone. Ged lay sprawled on his back, his face blackened with blood and great black stains on his shirt. Above him stood the Archmage Nemmerle, his cloak glimmering pale in the moonrise. The end of Nemmerle's staff hovered silvery above Ged's breast. Once gently it touched him over the heart, once on the lips, while Nemmerle whispered. Ged stirred, and his lips parted gasping for breath. Then the old Archmage lifted the staff, set it to earth, and leaned heavily on it with bowed head, as if he had scarcely strength to stand. To check the ungoverned spell and drive off the shadow from Ged, Nemmerle had spent all his power, and with it his bodily strength was gone. He lay dying. The next day, the iron bells of the Chanter's Tower tolled harshly, and the Nine Masters of Roke gathered in the Immanent Grove to choose a new Archmage.

Consequences and Aftermath

Ged lay blind, deaf, and mute for four weeks, his wounds deep and evil, the black blood in them refusing to stanch. The Master Herbal tended him, but no spell could cool the fever that burned him like a stick in a slow fire. When at last he recovered, he was scarred for life, his left side white with scars, and he spoke with a stammering tongue. The new Archmage, Gensher, refused Ged's fealty at first, telling him that the thing he had loosed was a nameless shadow, the shadow of his own arrogance and ignorance, and that it would hunt him until he gained strength and wisdom enough to defend himself—if ever he did. The shadow had fled from Nemmerle and from the spell-walls of Roke, but it was in the world now, somewhere, hiding. Ged's quest to confront and ultimately reintegrate that shadow became the central journey of his life, a path that would lead him to the dragon of Pendor, the Court of the Terrenon, and finally to the Open Sea, where he would speak the shadow's name and find it was his own.