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loyalty.”
    “And greater skill, my lord.”
    “Then you’d rather he went with me, and you stayed
     behind?”
    “No! But I fear—”
    “Fear what?”
    Tears sprang to the boy’s eyes. “To fail you,” he
     said.
    The Archmage turned around again to the fire. “Sit down,
     Arren,” he said, and the boy came to the stone cornerseat of the hearth. “I
     did not mistake you for a wizard or a warrior or any finished thing. What you are I do
     not know, though I’m glad to know that you can sail a boat. . . .
     What you will be, no oneknows. But this much I do know: you are the
     son of Morred and of Serriadh.”
    Arren was silent. “That is true, my lord,” he said at last.
     “But . . .” The Archmage said nothing, and he had to finish
     his sentence: “But I am not Morred. I am only myself.”
    “You take no pride in your lineage?”
    “Yes, I take pride in it—because it makes me a prince; it is a
     responsibility, a thing that must be lived up to—”
    The Archmage nodded once, sharply. “That is what I meant. To deny
     the past is to deny the future. A man does not make his destiny: he accepts it or denies
     it. If the rowan’s roots are shallow, it bears no crown.” At this Arren
     looked up startled, for his true name, Lebannen, meant the rowan tree. But the Archmage
     had not said his name. “Your roots are deep,” he went on. “You have
     strength and you must have room, room to grow. Thus I offer you, instead of a safe trip
     home to Enlad, an unsafe voyage to an unknown end. You need not come. The choice is
     yours. But I offer you the choice. For I am tired of safe places, and roofs, and walls
     around me.” He ended abruptly, looking about him with piercing, unseeing eyes.
     Arren saw the deep restlessness of the man, and it frightened him. Yet fear sharpens
     exhilaration, and it was with a leap of the heart that he answered, “My lord, I
     choose to go with you.”
    Arren left the Great House with his heart and mind full of wonder. He told
     himself that he was happy, but the word did notseem to suit. He
     told himself that the Archmage had called him strong, a man of destiny, and that he was
     proud of such praise; but he was not proud. Why not? The most powerful wizard in the
     world told him, “Tomorrow we sail to the edge of doom,” and he nodded his
     head and came: should he not feel pride? But he did not. He felt only wonder.
    He went down through the steep, wandering streets of Thwil Town, found his
     ship’s master on the quays, and said to him, “I sail tomorrow with the
     Archmage, to Wathort and the South Reach. Tell the Prince my father that when I am
     released from this service I will come home to Berila.”
    The ship’s captain looked dour. He knew how the bringer of such news
     might be received by the Prince of Enlad. “I must have writing about it from your
     hand, prince,” he said. Seeing the justice in that, Arren hurried off—he
     felt that all must be done instantly—and found a strange little shop where he
     purchased inkstone and brush and a piece of soft paper, thick as felt; then he hurried
     back to the quays and sat down on the wharfside to write his parents. When he thought of
     his mother holding this piece of paper, reading the letter, a distress came into him.
     She was a blithe, patient woman, but Arren knew that he was the foundation of her
     contentment, that she longed for his quick return. There was no way to comfort her for
     his long absence. His letter was dry and brief. He signed with the sword-rune, sealed
     the letter with a bit of pitch from a caulking-pot nearby, and gave it to the
     ship’smaster. Then, “Wait!” he said, as if the
     ship were ready to set sail that instant, and ran back up the cobbled streets to the
     strange little shop. He had trouble finding it, for there was something shifty about the
     streets of Thwil; it almost seemed that the turnings were different every time. He came
     on the right street at