“How did you find me?”
“Wizardry, bribery… I wasted time. I did not like to let it be known that the Archmage and Warden of Roke was ferreting about the slums of Hort Town. I wish still I could have kept up my disguise. But I had to track down this man and that man, and when at last I found that the slaver had sailed before daybreak, I lost my temper. I took Lookfar and spoke the wind into her sail in the dead calm of the day and glued the oars of every ship in that bay fast into the oarlocks– for a while. How they'll explain that, if wizardry's all lies and air, is their problem. But in my haste and anger I missed and overpassed Egre's ship, which had gone east of south to miss the shoals. Ill done was all I did this day. There is no luck in Hort Town… Well, I made a spell of finding at last, and so came on the ship in the darkness. Should you not sleep now?”
“I'm all right. I feel much better.” A light fever had replaced Arren's chill, and he did indeed feel well, his body languid but his mind racing lightly from one thing to another. “How soon did you wake up? What happened to Hare?”
“I woke with daylight; and lucky I have a hard head; there's a lump and a cut like a split cucumber behind my ear. I left Hare in the drug-sleep.”
“I failed my guard-”
“But not by falling asleep.”
“No.” Arren hesitated. “It was– I was-”
“You were ahead of me; I saw you,” Sparrowhawk said strangely. “And so they crept in and tapped us on the head like lambs at the shambles, took gold, good clothes, and the salable slave, and left. It was you they were after, lad. You'd fetch the price of a farm in Amrun Market.”
“They didn't tap me hard enough. I woke up. I did give them a run. I spilt their loot all over the street, too, before they cornered me.” Arren's eyes glittered.
“You woke while they were there– and ran? Why?”
“To get them away from you.” The surprise in Sparrowhawk's voice suddenly struck Arren's pride, and he added fiercely, “I thought it was you they were after. I thought they might kill you. I grabbed their bag so they'd follow me, and shouted out and ran. And they did follow me.”
“Aye– they would!” That was all Sparrowhawk said, no word of praise, though he sat and thought a while. Then he said, “Did it not occur to you I might be dead already?”
“No.”
“Murder first and rob after, is the safer course.”
“I didn't think of that. I only thought of getting them away from you.”
“Why?”
“Because you might be able to defend us, to get us both out of it, if you had time to wake up. Or get yourself out of it, anyway. I was on guard, and I failed my guard. I tried to make up for it. You are the one I was guarding. You are the one that matters. I'm along to guard, or whatever you need– it's you who'll lead us, who can get to wherever it is we must go, and put right what's gone wrong.”
“Is it?” said the mage. “I thought so myself, until last night. I thought I had a follower, but I followed you, my lad.” His voice was cool and perhaps a little ironic. Arren did not know what to say. He was indeed completely confused. He had thought that his fault of falling into sleep or trance on guard could scarcely be atoned by his feat of drawing off the robbers from Sparrowhawk: it now appeared that the latter had been a silly act, whereas going into trance at the wrong moment had been wonderfully clever.
“I am sorry, my lord,” he said at last, his lips rather stiff and the need to cry not easily controlled again, “that I failed you. And you have saved my life-”
“And you mine, maybe,” said the mage harshly.
“Who knows? They might have slit my throat when they were done. No more of that, Arren. I am glad you are with me.”
He went to their stores-box then and lit their little charcoal stove and busied himself with something. Arren lay and watched the stars, and his emotions cooled and his mind ceased racing. And he saw then that what he had done and what he had not done were not going to receive judgment from Sparrowhawk. He had done it; Sparrowhawk accepted it as done. “I do not punish,” he had said, cold-voiced, to Egre. Neither did he reward. But he had come for Arren in all haste across the sea, unleashing the power of his wizardry for his sake; and he would do so again. He was to be depended on.
He was worth all the love Arren had for him, and all the trust. For the fact was that he trusted Arren. What Arren did, was right.
He came back now, handing Arren a cup of steaming hot wine. “Maybe that'll put you to sleep. Take care, it'll scald your tongue.”
“Where did the wine come from? I never saw a wineskin aboard-”
“There's more in Lookfar than meets the eye,” Sparrowhawk said, sitting down again beside him, and Arren heard him laugh, briefly and almost silently, in the dark.
Arren sat up to drink the wine. It was very good, refreshing body and spirit. He said, “Where are we going now?”
“Westward.”
“Where did you go with Hare?”
“Into the darkness. I never lost him, but he was lost. He wandered on the outer borders, in the endless barrens of delirium and nightmare. His soul piped like a bird in those dreary places, like a seagull crying far from the sea. He is no guide. He has always been lost. For all his craft in sorcery he has never seen the way before him, seeing only himself.”
Arren did not understand all of this; nor did he want to understand it, now. He had been drawn a little way into that “darkness” of which wizards spoke, and he did not want to remember it; it was nothing to do with him. Indeed he did not want to sleep, lest he see it again in dream and see that dark figure, a shadow holding out a pearl, whispering, “Come.”
“My lord,” he said, his mind veering away rapidly to another subject, “why-”
“Sleep!” said Sparrowhawk with mild exasperation. “I can't sleep, my lord. I wondered why you didn't free the other slaves.”
“I did. I left none bound on that ship.”
“But Egre's men had weapons. If you had bound them-”
“Aye, if I had bound them? There were but six. The oarsmen were chained slaves, like you. Egre and his men may be dead by now, or chained by the others to be sold as slaves; but I left them free to fight or bargain. I am no slavetaker.”
“But you knew them to be evil men-”
“Was I to join them therefore? To let their acts rule my own? I will not make their choices for them, nor will I let them make mine for me!”
Arren was silent, pondering this. Presently the mage said, speaking softly, “Do you see, Arren, how an act is not, as young men think, like a rock that one picks up and throws, and it hits or misses, and that's the end of it. When that rock is lifted, the earth is lighter; the hand that bears it heavier. When it is thrown, the circuits of the stars respond, and where it strikes or falls the universe is changed. On every act the balance of the whole depends. The winds and seas, the powers of water and earth and light, all that these do, and all that the beasts and green things do, is well done, and rightly done. All these act within the Equilibrium. From the hurricane and the great whale's sounding to the fall of a dry leaf and the gnat's flight, all they do is done within the balance of the whole. But we, insofar as we have power over the world and over one another, we must learn to do what the leaf and the whale and the wind do of their own nature. We must learn to keep the balance. Having intelligence, we must not act in ignorance. Having choice, we must not act without responsibility. Who am I -though I have the power to do it– to punish and reward, playing with men's destinies?”
“But then,” the boy said, frowning at the stars, “is the balance to be kept by doing nothing? Surely a man must act, even not knowing all the consequences of his act, if anything is to be done at all?”