Disclaimer: It's not mine! None of it's mine!
Selidor
The larger dragon had watched the exchange between man and beast without speaking a word. Now he circled slowly lower, gusts from his wingbeats rocking the wizard's boat.
"I see that you are no ordinary mage, young one," he rumbled almost gently. Ged realized with a shock that this monster of glinting scales, criss- crossed with the scars of a hundred battles, was showing him respect.
The dragon's next question took him completely off-guard: "What turns your path towards Selidor?"
"I- I don't know," Ged faltered, stumped by the question. He'd never thought of why he was to sail to that ruined island; he only knew that it was his path.
"The Dragon of Selidor is no fool," the reptile hissed mildly. "Not the oldest, no! But the mightiest. Orm Embar need not hide his name; he fears no power, and does not deceive."
"Orm Embar," Ged muttered under his breath, tasting the unfamiliar syllables on his tongue. "Is he kin to the dragon Orm who slew Erreth-Akbe and was slain by him?"
"Do you fear Orm's descendents?" the dragon purred, a snort of green marsh- smoke spurting from his nostrils.
"I would be a fool not to pay dragons their due respect," the young mage said carefully.
The large battle-scarred dragon clapped his wings, the sound echoing over the sea and making Ged's ears hum. "All things respect Orm Embar!" the dragon thundered, spiralling up and away from the Lookfar and heading back to the Dragon's Run.
In the early clearness of the summer morning, Ged pulled the Lookfar up onto the beach so that she lay gazing inland at the low dunes. Taking his staff in hand, the young mage climbed steadily up the side of the first dune crowned with dusty grass. He looked out over the stretch of undulating sand that gave way to sinuous blue-green lagoons fringed with thick reeds, and further to the golden-brown empty hills that stretched to the end of sight.
No birds or beasts could be seen nor heard, and standing on the grassy crest of that first dune Ged felt very alone. He considered calling for Orm Embar, but immediately decided against it. Selidor was the dragon's land, and the first move would be his by right.
Ged trudged along the peaks of the dunes, keeping the sparkling ocean to his right. Long and far he walked, filling his canteen as he knelt in the sedgegrass beside a lagoon. Once he caught sight of a speckled tern winging its solitary way over the island, but that was all the life that he saw that day.
Before nightfall he returned to check on the beached Lookfar, cast a protective ward over her keel and hull, and build a tiny brush fire in the dell of clean sand behind the outermost dune. He wrapped himself in his travelling cloak, feet crossed at the ankle, and clutched his staff beside him with one hand. As the flames burnt down to smouldering embers, Ged slept.
Ah, the stage is set for the climactic meeting. Next comes my favourite chapter…