I do not own Earthsea, etc., etc., etc…
All right! Here we actually get to see Ged do some magic!
Encounter
Ged watched the eastern sky transform into a puzzle of gauzy rose-coloured clouds. When the golden orb had at last pulled itself free from the scintillating horizon, he continued on his way to Selidor.
The young wizard stood, feet braced wide, and rowed the Lookfar down the waterway and out into the open sea.
Before leaving for the west he had thoroughly perused the Room of Shelves in the Great House of Roke, gathering all the information he could about famous Dragonlords and dragons. "They do not fight willingly over sea," he had read, sitting at a desk surrounded by dusty scrolls. "Their kinship is with wind and fire."
Knowing this, Ged felt light-headed with relief as he shipped oars and sailed the Lookfar through open water. It therefore came as a great surprise when he heard a deafening voice bellow, "Mage! Still your sails!"
Ged knew better than to ignore the commands of a dragon. He let the magewind die away and turned to face the speaker. He was taken aback to see not one, but two of the vast creatures circling idly above and behind him. These were not weak spontaneous yearlings, either. Ged swallowed, unsure for once of what to say. Instead, he waited patiently for the dragons to speak.
The larger one drifted lower with barely a stir his leathern wings. "What is your destination?" the dragon boomed, greenish smoke billowing from his wicked jaws.
"Selidor," the mage replied, keeping his expression neutral.
The smaller dragon, a thin serpent-like creature with ragged wings, veered around at Ged's answer. "Selidor!" he hissed, black double-tongue darting in and out of his mouth. "He goes to meet his death under Orm Embar's talons."
The larger dragon ignored the serpentine one, and addresses Ged again.
"Are you the mage who outwitted the Dragon of Pendor?" he demanded, slowly circling the Lookfar.
"I am," the wizard said uneasily, trying to keep his tone deferential.
"You bound him from the Archipelago and slew his young?"
"No," the mage replied, "I slew six." He wondered if the dragons had come to exact revenge.
"And the black she-dragon who haunts the Keep of Kalessin— you have mastery over her?"
"Aye, that is me— What is the Keep of Kalessin? Is it that great black tower of rock?"
"Ask no question of us!" the smaller dragon snapped suddenly, fed up with listening to a conversation in which he took no part. Beating his ragged wings, he flew at Ged.
The mage was ready with a spell of binding. Despite his young power, Ged's tendrils of magic were unable to trap the dragon's torn membranous wings. He finally understood the real power of a dragon's sorcery.
Those narrow jaws opened, about to drench his boat with crimson flames, and that was when the wizard lifted his staff to work another spell.
The dragon halted in his dive, not fifty feet from the Lookfar, drawing his body up and arching his wings like a hawk poised in mid-flight. Those slavering chops opened and closed, black tongues slithering over hooked yellow teeth, but no fire came. The reptile choked, rasped, and coughed. Heavy black smoke curled from his throat, and still no fire came. Ged's spell had quenched it.
The dragon looked fearfully at that young, grim-faced man who stood straight and tall in his boat with staff upraised. The serpent could easily have crushed every bone in the mage's body with one sweep of his barbed tail, but he did not. Instead, he whirled about and soared back to the islands, keening dolefully.
You go, Ged! Whew, that was close – a few more seconds and our favourite mage would have been barbecue. Keep going, guys! Almost there!