Township of Low Torning

The Township of Low Torning was a cluster of ten or twenty islets in the westernmost part of the Ninety Isles, a crowded archipelago west of Roke between the great lands Hosk and Ensmer. Unlike the thriving islands of the Inmost Sea, Low Torning looked not inward but outward to the empty ocean, that lonely corner of the Archipelago where only Pendor lay, the dragon-spoiled isle, and beyond it the waters of the West Reach, desolate. The township had no stone to build with, and its houses were thatched and windowless, with earthen floors; yet no one starved, and the Isle-Men who governed the community were honest fishermen and farmers who lived by the many bright winding channels of the sea.

The Hiring of a Wizard

In late years the old Dragon of Pendor had spawned nine dragons, which laired in the ruined towers of the Sealords of Pendor, and a flight of four had already been seen over the southwest shores of Hosk, spying out sheepfolds, barns, and villages. The hunger of a dragon is slow to wake but hard to sate, and the Isle-Men of Low Torning, fearing what boded over the western horizon, sent to Roke begging for a wizard to protect their folk. The Archmage Gensher judged their fear well founded and sent Ged, who had just been made wizard, to serve as their protector. A house was ready for him on a hill among green fields of barley, sheltered from the west wind by a grove of pendick-trees that were red with flowers. The Isle-Men, standing in awe of the wizard from Roke, asked pardon for its humbleness, but to Ged it was as good as any palace. He thanked the leaders of the township frankly, so that the eighteen of them went home, each in his own rowboat to his home isle, to tell the fishermen and housewives that the new wizard was a strange young grim fellow who spoke little, but he spoke fairly, and without pride.

Life and Service in Low Torning

Ged lived in the house under the flowering trees, watching the western sky often and keeping his wizard's ear tuned for the sound of scaly wings, but no dragon came. He fished from his jetty, tended his garden-patch, and spent whole days pondering a page or a line or a word in the Lore-Books he had brought from Roke, sitting out in the summer air under the pendick-trees while his otak slept beside him or went hunting mice. He served the people of Low Torning as healall and weatherworker whenever they asked him, performing simple crafts without shame, for he had been a witch-child among poorer folk than these. The islanders, however, asked little of him, holding him in awe partly because he was a wizard from the Isle of the Wise, and partly on account of his silence and his scarred face. There was that about him, young as he was, that made men uneasy with him. Yet he found a friend, the boatmaker Pechvarry, who dwelt on the next islet eastward. They worked together often, Ged interweaving his spellcrafts with Pechvarry's handwork on the boats he built or repaired, and in return learning from Pechvarry how a boat was built and how it was handled without aid of magic. Often Ged and Pechvarry and his little son Ioeth went out into the channels and lagoons, sailing or rowing, till Ged was a fair sailor and the friendship between him and Pechvarry was a settled thing.

The Dragon of Pendor and the Township's Deliverance

When the shadow began to haunt Ged in Low Torning, he knew he could not stay without endangering the islanders. He went down among the fishermen in the principal moorage and told the Head Isle-Man that he must leave, but asked leave first to go out and do away with the dragons on Pendor so that his task for them would be finished. The Isle-Man stared at him all dropjawed, exclaiming that there were nine dragons out there. Ged insisted, and the Isle-Man gloomily gave his leave, while all who listened thought this a folly or a crazy courage in their young wizard. With sullen faces they saw him go, expecting no news of him again; some hinted that he meant merely to sail back by Hosk to the Inmost Sea, leaving them in the lurch, while others, among them Pechvarry, held that he had gone mad and sought death. 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, stare at him, and listen. He told his tale of dragons slain and dragons baffled, and though one man questioned the truth of it, the Head Isle-Man silenced him, knowing that a wizard may have subtle ways of telling the truth but that if he says a thing, the thing is as he says. The people felt their fear lifted from them and began to rejoice, pressing round their young wizard and asking for the tale again. By nightfall the village chanters had fitted it to an old tune and were singing the Song of the Sparrowhawk. Bonfires burned not only on the isles of Low Torning but in townships to the south and east, and fishermen shouted the news from boat to boat, from isle to isle: Evil is averted, the dragons will never come from Pendor!

Departure and Legacy

That one night was joyous for Ged, with no shadow coming near him through the brightness of the 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 so that sparks rose thick and bright and brief upon the wind. The next day he met with Pechvarry, who said, "I did not know you were so mighty, my lord," with fear and reproach in his voice, for 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 next day, though they would have kept him gladly the rest of his life to praise and boast of, he left the house on the hill, with no baggage but his books, his staff, and the otak riding on his shoulder. He went in a rowboat with a couple of young fishermen of Low Torning who wanted the honor of being his boatmen, and as they rowed on among the craft that crowded the eastern channels of the Ninety Isles, word of his deed had gone ahead of him. They whistled the Song of the Sparrowhawk as he went by, and vied to have him spend the night and tell his dragon-tale. When at last he came to Serd, the ship's master of whom he asked passage out to Roke bowed as he answered, "A privilege to me, Lord Wizard, and an honor to my ship!"