"Go on."
"Backward?"
"Backward."
"Well. Before that was Roke."
"Roke's never simple."
"No."
They drank their red wine in silence.
"Tell me of the Patterner."
She smiled. "Seserakh calls him the Warrior. She says only a warrior would fall in love with a dragon."
"Who followed him to the dry land—that night?"
"He followed Alder."
"Ah," Ged said, with surprise and a certain satisfaction.
"So did others of the masters. And Lebannen, and Irian…"
"And Tehanu."
A silence.
"She went out of the house. When I came out she was gone." A long silence. "Azver saw her. In the sunrise. On the other wind."
A silence.
"They're all gone. There are no dragons left in Havnor or the western islands. Onyx said: as that shadow place and all the shadows in it rejoined the world of light, so they regained their true realm."
"We broke the world to make it whole," Ged said.
After a long time Tenar said in a soft, thin voice, "The Patterner believes Irian will come to the Grove if he calls to her."
Ged said nothing, till, after a while: "Look there, Tenar."
She looked where he was looking, into the dim gulf of air above the western sea.
"If she comes, she'll come from there," he said. "And if she doesn't come, she is there."
She nodded. "I know." Her eyes were full of tears. "Lebannen sang me a song, on the ship, when we were going back to Havnor." She could not sing; she whispered the words. "O my joy, be free…"
He looked away, up at the forests, at the mountain, the darkening heights.
"Tell me," she said, "tell me what you did while I was gone."
"Kept the house."
"Did you walk in the forest?"
"Not yet," he said.