“In these past years,” Tenar said, hesitant, “there have been many troubles, many miseries. My-the little girl- Such things have been all too common. And I have heard men and women of power speak of the waning, or the changing, of their power.

“That one whom the archmage and my lord defeated in the dry land, that Cob, caused untold harm and ruin. We shall be repairing our art, healing our wizards and our wizardry, for a long time yet,” the mage said, decisively.

“I wonder if there might be more to be done than repairing and healing,” she said, “though that too, of course- But I wonder, could it be that . . . that one such as Cob could have such power because things were already altering . . . and that a change, a great change, has been taking place, has taken place? And that it’s because of that change that we have a king again in Earthsea-perhaps a king rather than an archmage?”’

The Windkey looked at her as if he saw a very distant storm cloud on the uttermost horizon. He even raised his right hand in the hint, the first sketch, of a wind binding spell, and then lowered it again. He smiled. “Don’t be afraid, my lady,” he said. “Roke, and the Art Magic, will endure. Our treasure is well guarded!”

“Tell Kalessin that,”’ she said, suddenly unable to endure the utter unconsciousness of his disrespect. It made him stare, of course. He heard the dragon’s name. But it did not

make him hear her. How could he, who had never listened to a woman since his mother sang him his last cradle song, hear her?

“Indeed,” said Lebannen, “Kalessin came to Roke, which is said to be defended utterly from dragons; and not through any spell of my lord’s, for he had no magery then. . . . But I don’t think, Master Windkey, that Lady Tenar was afraid for herself.”’

The mage made an earnest effort to amend his offense. “I’m sorry, my lady,”’ he said, “I spoke as to an ordinary woman.

She almost laughed. She could have shaken him. She said only, indifferently, “My fears are ordinary fears.” It was no use; he could not hear her.

But the young king was silent, listening.

A sailor boy up in the dizzy, swaying world of the masts and sails and rigging overhead called out clear and sweet, “Town there round the point!’” And in a minute those down on deck saw the little huddle of slate roofs, the spires of blue smoke, a few glass windows catching the westering sun, and the docks and piers of Valmouth on its bay of satiny blue water.

“Shall I take her in or will you talk her in, my lord?”’ asked the calm ship’s-master, and the Windkey replied, “Sail her in, master. I don’t want to have to deal with all that flotsam!”-waving his hand at the dozens of fishing craft that littered the bay. So the king’s ship, like a swan among ducklings, came tacking slowly in, hailed by every boat she passed .

Tenar looked along the docks, but there was no other seagoing vessel.

“I have a sailor son,’” she said to Lebannen. “I thought his ship might be in.”’

“What is his ship?’

“He was third mate aboard the Gull of Eskel, but that was more than two years ago. He may have changed ships. He’s a restless man.”’ She smiled. “When I first saw you, I thought you were my son. You’re nothing alike, only in being tall, and thin, and young. And I was confused, frightened. . . . Ordinary fears.”

The mage had gone up on the master’s station in the prow, and she and Lebannen stood alone.

“There is too much ordinary fear,” he said.

It was her only chance to speak to him alone, and the words came out hurried and uncertain-’ ‘1 wanted to say- but there was no use-but couldn’t it be that there’s a woman on Gont, I don’t know who, I have no idea, but it could be that there is, or will be, or may be, a woman, and that they seek-that they need-her. Is it impossible?”

He listened. He was not deaf. But he frowned, intent, as if trying to understand a foreign language. And he said only, under his breath, “It may be.”

A fisherwoman in her tiny dinghy bawled up, “Where from?’” and the boy in the rigging called back like a crowing cock, “From the King’s City!”

“What is this ship’s name?” Tenar asked. “My son will ask what ship I sailed on.

“Dolphin, “ Lebannen answered, smiling at her. My son, my king, my dear boy, she thought. How I’d like to keep you nearby!

“I must go get my little one,’' “ she said.

“How will you get home?”

“Afoot. It’s only a few miles up the valley.” She pointed past the town, inland, where Middle Valley lay broad and sunlit between two arms of the mountain, like a lap. “The village is on the river, and my farm’s a half mile from the

village. It’s a pretty corner of your kingdom.”

“But will you be safe?”

“Oh, yes. I’ll spend tonight with my daughter here in Valmouth, And in the village they’re all to be depended on. I won’t be alone.”

Their eyes met for a moment, but neither spoke the name they both thought.

“Will they be coming again, from Roke?” she asked. “Looking for the ‘woman on Gont”-or for him?”’

“Not for him. That, if they propose again, I will forbid,” Lebannen said, not realizing how much he told her in those three words. “But as for their search for a new archmage, or for the woman of the Patterner’s s vision, yes, that may bring them here. And perhaps to you.

“They’ll be welcome at Oak Farm,” she said. “Though not as welcome as you would be."

“I will come when I can,” he said, a little sternly; and a little wistfully, “if I can.”

Most of the people of Valmouth came down to the docks to see the ship from Havnor, when they heard that the king was aboard, the new king, the young king that the new songs were about. They didn’t know the new songs yet, but they knew the old ones, and old Relli came with his harp and sang a piece of the Deed of Morred, for a king of Earthsea would be the heir of Morred for certain. Presently the king himself came on deck, as young and tall and handsome as could be, and with him a mage of Roke, and a woman and a little girl in old cloaks not much better than beggars, but he treated them as if they were a queen and a princess, so maybe that’s what they were. “Maybe it’s his mother,” said Shinny, trying to see over the heads of the men in front of her, and then her friend Apple clutched her arm and said in a kind of whispered shriek, “It is-it’s mother!”

“Whose mother?” said Shinny, and Apple said, “Mine. And that’s Therru.” But she did not push forward in the crowd, even when an officer of the ship came ashore to invite old Relli aboard to play for the king. She waited with the others. She saw the king receive the notables of Val-mouth, and heard Relli sing for him. She watched him bid his guests farewell, for the ship was going to stand out to sea again, people said, before night fell, and be on her way

home to Havnor, The last to come across the gangplank were Therru and Tenar. To each the king gave the formal embrace, laying cheek to cheek, kneeling tO embrace Therru. “Ah!” said the crowd on the dock. The sun was setting in a mist of gold, laying a great gold track across the bay, as the two came down the railed gangplank. Tenar lugged a heavy pack and bag; Therru’s face was bent down and hidden by her hair. The gangplank was run in, and the sailors leapt to the rigging, and the officers shouted, and the ship Dolphin turned on her way. Then Apple made her way through the crowd at last.

“Hello, mother,” she said, and Tenar said, “Hello, daughter.” They kissed, and Apple picked up Therru and said, “How you’ve grown! You’re twice the girl you were. Come on, come on home with me.

But Apple was a little shy with her mother, that evening, in the pleasant house of her young merchant husband. She gazed at her several times with a thoughtful, almost a wary look. “It never meant a thing to me, you know, mother,” she said at the door of Tenar’s bedroom-”all that-the Rune of peace-and you bringing the Ring to Havnor. It was just like one of the songs. A thousand years ago! But it really was you, wasn’t it?”