WHAT ARE YOU THINKING ABOUT RIGHT NOW?

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"You have come to the Dry River," said the voice. "You cannot go back to the wall of stones. You cannot go back to life."

"Not that way," said Ged, speaking into the darkness. "But we would learn your way." There was no answer.

"We meet as equals here. If you are blind, Cob, yet we are in the dark." There was no answer.

"We cannot hurt you here; we cannot kill you. What is there to fear?"

"I have no fear," said the voice in the darkness. Then slowly, glimmering a little as with that light that sometimes clung to Ged's staff, the man appeared. standing some way upstream from Ged and Arren, among the great, dim masses of the boulders. So he appeared in the spirit, in the kingdom of death, not burnt by the dragon's fire, not maimed; but not whole. The sockets of his eyes were empty.

"I have no fear," he said. "What should a dead man fear?" He laughed. The sound of laughter rang so false and uncanny, there in that narrow stony valley under the mountains, that Arren's breath failed him for a moment. But he gripped his sword and listened.

"I do not know what a dead man should fear," Ged answered. "Surely not death? Yet it seems you fear it. Even though you have a found a way to escape from it."

"I have. I live: my body lives."

"Not well," the mage said dryly. "Illusion might hide age; but Orm Embar was not gentle with that body."

"I can mend it. I know secrets of healing and of youth. No mere illusions. What do you take me for? Because you are called Archmage, do you take me for a village sorcerer? I who alone among all mages found the Way of Immortality, which no other ever found!"

"Maybe we did not seek it," said Ged.

"You sought it. All of you. You sought it and could not find it, and so made wise words about acceptance and balance and the equilibrium of life and death. But they were words -- lies to cover your failure -- to cover your fear of death! What man would not live forever, if he could? And I can. I am immortal. I did what you could not do and therefore I am your master; and you know it. The door I opened is open not only here, but in the minds of the living, in the depths and unknown places of their being, where we are all one in the darkness. They know it, and they come to me. And the dead too must come to me, all of them, for I have not lost the magery of the living: They must climb over the wall of stones when I bid them, all the souls, the lords, the mages, the proud women; back and forth from life to death, at my command. All must come to me, the living and the dead, I who died and live!"

"Where do they come to you, Cob? Where is it that you are?"

"Between the worlds."

"But that is neither life nor death. What is life, Cob?"

"Power."

"What is love?"

"Power," the blind man repeated heavily, hunching up his shoulders.

"What is light?"

"Darkness!"

"What is your name?"

"I have none."

"All in this land bear their true name."

"Tell me yours, then!"

"I am named Ged. And you?"

The blind man hesistated, and said, "Cob."

"That was your use-name, not your name. Where is your name? Where is the truth of you? Did you leave it in Paln where you died? You have forgotten much, O Lord of the Two Lands. You have forgotten light, and love, and your own name.

"I have your name now, and power over you, Ged the Archmage -- Ged who was Archmage when he was alive!"

"My name is no use to you," Ged said. "You have no power over me at all. I am a living man; my body lies on the beach of Selidor, under the sun, on the turning earth. And when that body dies, I will be here: but only in name, in name alone, in shadow. Do you not understand? Did you never understand, you who called up so many shadows from the dead, who summoned all the hosts of the perished, even my lord Erreth-Akbe, wisest of us all? Did you not understand that he, even he, is but a shadow and a name? His death did not diminish life. Nor did it dimiminish him. He is there -- there not here! Here is nothing, dust and shadows. There, he is the earth and the sunlight, the leaves of trees, the eagle's flight. He is alive. And all who ever died, live; they are reborn and have no end, nor will there ever be an end. All, save you. For you would not have death. You lost death, you lost life, in order to save yourself. Yourself! Your immortal self! What is it? Who are you?"

"I am myself. My body will not decay and die--"

"A living body suffers pain, Cob; a living body grows old; it dies. Death is the price we pay for our life and for all life."

"I do not pay it! I can die and in that moment live again! I cannot be killed; I am immortal. I alone am myself forever!"

"Who are you then?"

"The Immortal One."

"Say your name."

"The King."

"Say my name. I told it to you but a minute since. Say my name!"

"You are not real. You have no name. Only I exist."

"You exist: without name, without form. You cannot see the light of day; you cannot see the dark. You sold the green earth and the sun and stars to save yourself. But you have no self. All that which you sold, that is yourself. You have given everything for nothing. And so now you seek to draw the world to you, all that light and life you lost, to fill up your nothingness. But it cannot be filled. Not all the songs of earth, not all the stars of heaven, could fill up your emptiness."
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