Free The Farthest Shore by Ursula K. Le Guin

to show no whites. He disputed earnestly with Sparrowhawk, urging him to eat hazia. “I want totake you, take you with me. We’ve got to go the same way. Before long I’ll be going, whether you’re ready or not. You must have the hazia to follow me.”
    “I think I can follow you.”
    “Not where I’m going. This isn’t . . . spell-casting.” He seemed unable to say the words “wizard” or “wizardry.” “I know you can get to the—the place, you know, the wall. But it isn’t there. It’s a different way.”
    “If you go, I can follow.”
    Hare shook his head. His handsome, ruined face was flushed; he glanced over at Arren often, including him, though he spoke only to Sparrowhawk. “Look: there are two kinds of men, aren’t there? Our kind and the rest. The . . . the dragons and the others. People without power are only half-alive. They don’t count. They don’t know what they dream; they’re afraid of the dark. But the others, the lords of men, aren’t afraid to go into the dark. We have strength.”
    “So long as we know the names of things.”
    “But names don’t matter there—that’s the point, that’s the point! It isn’t what you do, what you know, that you need. Spells are no good. You have to forget all that, to let it go. That’s where eating hazia helps; you forget the names, you let the forms of things go, you go straight to the reality. I’m going to be going pretty soon now; if you want to find out where, you ought to do as I say. I say as he does. You must be a lord of mento be a lord of life. You have to find the secret. I could tell you its name but what’s a name? A name isn’t real, the real, the real forever. Dragons can’t go there. Dragons die. They all die. I took so much tonight you’ll never catch me. Not a patch on me. Where I get lost you can lead me. Remember what the secret is? Remember? No death. No death—no! No sweaty bed and rotting coffin, no more, never. The blood dries up like the dry river and it’s gone. No fear. No death. The names are gone and the words and the fear, gone. Show me where I get lost, show me, lord. . . .”
    So he went on, in a choked rapture of words that was like the chanting of a spell, and yet made no spell, no whole, no sense. Arren listened, listened, striving to understand. If only he could understand! Sparrowhawk should do as he said and take the drug, this once, so that he could find out what Hare was talking about, the mystery that he would not or could not speak. Why else were they here? But then (Arren looked from Hare’s ecstatic face to the other profile) perhaps the mage understood already. . . . Hard as rock, that profile. Where was the snubbed nose, the bland look? Hawk the sea-trader was gone, forgotten. It was the mage, the Archmage, who sat there.
    Hare’s voice now was a crooning mumble, and he rocked his body as he sat cross-legged. His face had grown haggard and his mouth slack. Facing him, in the tiny, steady light of the oil lamp set on the floor between them, the other never spoke, but he hadreached out and taken Hare’s hand, holding him. Arren had not seen him reach out. There were gaps in the order of events, gaps of nonexistence—drowsiness, it must be. Surely some hours had passed; it might be near midnight. If he slept, would he too be able to follow Hare into his dream and come to the place, the secret way? Perhaps he could. It seemed quite possible now. But he was to guard the door. He and Sparrowhawk had scarcely spoken of it, but both were aware that in having them come back at night Hare might have planned some ambush; he had been a pirate; he knew robbers. They had said nothing, but Arren knew that he was to stand guard, for while the mage made this strange journey of the spirit he would be defenseless. But like a fool he had left his sword on board the boat, and how much good would his knife be if that door swung suddenly open behind him? But that would not happen: he could listen