Wizard

A wizard in Earthsea is a practitioner of the highest arts of magic, distinguished from a mere sorcerer or village witch by formal training, the carrying of a staff, and a deep understanding of the Balance and the Pattern that govern the world. The most famous of all wizards was Ged, who rose from a wild boy in a Gontish village to become both Dragonlord and Archmage. His life, told in the Deed of Ged and many songs, exemplifies the path and the perils of wizardry.

Identity and Training

The path to wizardry begins with innate power, but that power must be shaped by knowledge and discipline. Ged's first step came when, as a seven-year-old, he unknowingly spoke a rhyme of power to call the goats, revealing the "makings of power" within him. His aunt, the village witch, taught him the true name of the falcon, but her lore was limited and often foolish, knowing "nothing of the Balance and the Pattern which the true wizard knows and serves." True training began when the mage Ogion came to Ten Alders, healed Ged from his overspent power, and gave him his true name, Ged, at his Passage into manhood. Ogion taught that mastery is patience, that "to hear, one must be silent," and that knowing a thing's being is more than knowing its use. Later, Ged was sent to the School for Wizards on Roke, where he studied under the Nine Masters, learning the Six Hundred Runes of Hardic, the arts of weatherworking, illusion, and the perilous Spells of Shaping and Summoning. The Master Namer, Kurremkarmerruk, taught him that "magic consists in this, the true naming of a thing," and that a mage's power is limited by what he can name exactly and wholly.

Power, Limits, and the True Speech

The foundation of a wizard's power is the Old Speech, the language in which things are named with their true names. This is the language dragons speak and the language Segoy spoke when he raised the islands of Earthsea from the sea. A wizard's spells are worked in this tongue, and the use of the Old Speech binds a man to truth, though dragons can lie in it. The power to work magic sets its own limits: a mage can control only what is near him and what he can name precisely. This is well, for if it were not so, "the wickedness of the powerful or the folly of the wise would long ago have sought to change what cannot be changed, and Equilibrium would fail." The Master Hand taught Ged that to change a rock into a jewel is to change its true name, and thus to change the world, a power that must follow knowledge and serve need. "To light a candle is to cast a shadow," he warned, a lesson Ged learned through bitter experience.

The Peril of Pride and the Shadow

Ged's great power was matched by his pride, which led him to his gravest error. Driven by rivalry with Jasper, he performed a forbidden Spell of Summoning on Roke Knoll, calling the spirit of the dead Elfarran. But with the spirit came a shadow, a nameless thing of unlife, which attacked him and tore his flesh. The Archmage Nemmerle saved Ged's life but spent all his own power in the act, dying as a result. The shadow, Ged's own creature, became his relentless hunter. The Archmage Gensher told Ged that the shadow was "the shadow of your arrogance, the shadow of your ignorance, the shadow you cast." It had no name, and it sought to possess him. Ged's subsequent journey was not a war against an external enemy but a search and a discovery, a hunt to find and face his own darkness.

The Hunt and the Reintegration

Following Ogion's counsel to "turn around" and "seek what seeks you," Ged became the hunter. He faced the shadow on the sea, in the Hands, and finally on the Open Sea, where he sailed beyond the known world to the dry land of death's kingdom. There, in the ultimate confrontation, he spoke the shadow's name, and the shadow spoke his name, and the two voices were one. Ged reached out and took hold of his shadow, and light and darkness met and were joined. He had named the shadow of his death with his own name, making himself whole. As Vetch understood, Ged had become a man "who, knowing his whole true self, cannot be used or possessed by any power other than himself, and whose life therefore is lived for life's sake and never in the service of ruin, or pain, or hatred, or the dark." This is the true mastery of a wizard: not the power to command others, but the wisdom to know and integrate the whole of one's own being.