A Wizard of Earthsea - Story Continuation

The two wizard comrades rested that night in the Iffish hut after sharing few words of welcome with Yarrow. Ged slept, or rather, collapsed straight onto the soft dirt floor upon being met with the cosy thick warm air of the fire-lit hut. Vetch had objected to his previous plans of parting with him as soon as they reached the entrance of Ismay and insisted that he relax and recuperate with his family as long as he wished.

Ged woke alone the following morning wrapped in a thick sheepskin blanket next to the smouldering red coals. He groggily rubbed his eyes with one hand while groping blindly with the other hand for his yew wood staff.

"Good morning Sparrowhawk."

Snatching up his staff and hoisting it out before him in an attack stance, Ged faced the voice coming from the doorway ready to fight. "Did you rest well?" Vetch laughed heartily as he unloaded the bundle of fresh kindling he carried under his arm. "I didn't expect you to wake so early,"

Ged nodded plainly at Vetch and huddled back under his blanket pretending to be too fatigued to reply. "I'm going back to retrieve more wood," Whispered Vetch as he crept lightly on his toes toward the door. "I'll return soon."

Soon after he was sure Vetch was far down the road, Ged propped himself from the floor, reluctant to doze. For the first time in the past seven years of his youth, he was bored.

In the Isolated Tower on the Isle of Roke there was many a song retelling the adventure of a hero – their trials, hardship and their acts: both good and bad. But never a scroll remained that bore a clue as to what happened after each adventure. As if their life simply ended on the final rune. Could one survive beasts, war and journey but be slain from a dull life?

Ged walked through the front door that Vetch had left open; embracing the chill breeze, vulnerable and exposed with only his staff to defend himself. He had nothing to fear, the part of his mind that feared the shadow was now hollow. Empty. There was no acceptance in him, of his own freedom. The sense of accomplishment he once had after defeating the shadow was now gone, left to wash away in the mighty waves of the East Reach. Confidence in himself he needed; but showing your pride was not part of a true wizard.

Those Ged knew on Gont could have been long dead by now, with little to protect them from the Kargads if they decided to invade again. His fellow goat herders, his aunt, and most of all, the father he grew up feeling distant and alienated from. He had never cared to think of his father. The first time he ever considered the fact that he may have lost his family forever was when he'd held the stiff bloodied lifeless otak in his hands outside the gates of the unforgiving Terrenon.

When he flew to Re Albi on eagle wings to seek Ogion's help he had the chance to see his father, maybe even for the last time. It would not have been a meeting Ged would have looked forward to despite wishing their paths would cross again. He felt it would have been right, no, normal for a father to witness his son as a full grown and alive man.

Ged frowned to himself taking a seat upon the filthy threadbare doormat as he watched a circle of dust rise around him. He though again, scratching the foot of his staff idly in the dirt, that he was not an "average" man – he was living the life of a wizard on the run; and that, of course, left no room for normalities.

But just like the loss of the Otak, Ged realised something – he must move on. Though he, Vetch and Ogion were wizards alike, Ged could not stand forever frivolously in one place. He had accepted the shadow. He was free from the never ending chase that took place from the great Isle of Roke, back from the Dragon's lair and all the way to Last Land, but there was the powerful driving force of adventure that kept him wanting to flee to the lands left to be explored.

And even though he had ventured more lands of the Archipelago he had thought existed, there were only two people in the entire Earthsea he could trust. Those people had always been there, waiting and always prepared for Ged to return. But for now, the Sparrowhawk must leave one of those two and take flight.

When Vetch returned with the firewood, Ged was gone. In his place where he'd sat in the doorway was a message of runes scrawled, without spells or magic, that slowly faded as the sea-wind blew the soil it was deeply scratched in away: 'Friend, I soar.'