The Tombs of Atuan

The Great Treasure

Never had the rites and duties of the day seemed so many, or so petty, or so long. The little girls with their pale faces and furtive ways, the restless novices, the priestesses whose looks were stern and cool but whose lives were all a secret brangle of jealousies and miseries and small ambitions and wasted passions– all these women, among whom she had always lived and who made up the human world to her, now appeared to her as both pitiable and boring.

But she who served great powers, she the priestess of grim Night, was free of that pettiness. She did not have to care about the grinding meanness of their common life, the days whose one delight was likely to be getting a bigger slop of lamb fat over your lentils than your neighbor got… She was free of the days altogether. Underground, there were no days. There was always and only night.

And in that unending night, the prisoner: the dark man, practicer of dark arts, bound in iron and locked in stone, waiting for her to come or not to come, to bring him water and bread and life, or a knife and a butcher’s bowl and death, just as the whim took her.

She had told no one but Kossil about the man, and Kossil had not told anyone else. He had been in the Painted Room three nights and days now, and still she had not asked Arha about him. Perhaps she assumed that he was dead, and that Arha had had Manan carry the body to the Room of Bones. It was not like Kossil to take anything for granted; but Arha told herself that there was nothing strange about Kossil’s silence. Kossil wanted everything kept secret, and hated to have to ask questions. And besides, Arha had told her not to meddle in her business. Kossil was simply obeying.

However, if the man was supposed to be dead, Arha could not ask for food for him. So, aside from stealing some apples and dried onions from the cellars of the Big House, she did without food. She had her morning and evening meals sent to the Small House, pretending she wished to eat alone, and each night took the food down to the Painted Room in the Labyrinth, all but the soups. She was used to fasting for a day on up to four days at a time, and thought nothing about it. The fellow in the Labyrinth ate up her meager portions of bread and cheese and beans as a toad eats a fly: snap! it’s gone. Clearly he could have done so five or six times over; but he thanked her soberly, as if he were her guest and she his hostess at a table such as she had heard of in tales of feasts at the palace of the Godking, all set with roast meats and buttered loaves and wine in crystal. He was very strange.

“What is it like in the Inner Lands?”

She had brought down a little cross-leg folding stool of ivory, so that she would not have to stand while she questioned him, yet would not have to sit down on the floor, on his level.

“Well, there are many islands. Four times forty, they say, in the Archipelago alone, and then there are the Reaches; no man has ever sailed all the Reaches, nor counted all the lands. And each is different from the others. But the fairest of them all, maybe, is Havnor, the great land at the center of the world. In the heart of Havnor on a broad bay full of ships is the City Havnor. The towers of the city are built of white marble. The house of every prince and merchant has a tower, so they rise up one above the other. The roofs of the houses are red tile, and all the bridges over the canals are covered in mosaic work, red and blue and green. And the flags of the princes are all colors, flying from the white towers. On the highest of all the towers the Sword of Erreth-Akbe is set, like a pinnacle, skyward. When the sun rises on Havnor it flashes first on that blade and makes it bright, and when it sets the Sword is golden still above the evening, for a while.”

“Who was Erreth-Akbe?” she said, sly.

He looked up at her. He said nothing, but he grinned a little. Then as if on second thoughts he said, “It’s true you would know little of him here. Nothing beyond his coming to the Kargish lands, perhaps. And how much of that tale do you know?”

“That he lost his sorcerer’s staff and his amulet and his power– like you,” she answered. “He escaped from the High Priest and fled into the west, and dragons killed him. But if he’d come here to the Tombs, there had been no need of dragons.”

“True enough,” said her prisoner.

She wanted no more talk of Erreth-Akbe, sensing a danger in the subject. “He was a dragonlord, they say. And you say you’re one. Tell me, what is a dragonlord?”

Her tone was always jeering, his answers direct and plain, as if he took her questions in good faith.

“One whom the dragons will speak with,” he said, “that is a dragonlord, or at least that is the center of the matter. It’s not a trick of mastering the dragons, as most people think. Dragons have no masters. The question is always the same, with a dragon: will he talk with you or will he eat you? If you can count upon his doing the former, and not doing the latter, why then you’re a dragonlord.”

“Dragons can speak?”

“Surely! In the Eldest Tongue, the language we men learn so hard and use so brokenly, to make our spells of magic and of patterning. No man knows all that language, or a tenth of it. He has not time to learn it. But dragons live a thousand years… They are worth talking to, as you might guess.”

“Are there dragons here in Atuan?”

“Not for many centuries, I think, nor in Karego-At. But in your northernmost island, Hur-at-Hur, they say there are still large dragons in the mountains. In the Inner Lands they all keep now to the farthest west, the remote West Reach, islands where no men live and few men come. If they grow hungry, they raid the lands to their east; but that is seldom. I have seen the island where they come to dance together. They fly on their great wings in spirals, in and out, higher and higher over the western sea, like a storming of yellow leaves in autumn.” Full of the vision, his eyes gazed through the black paintings on the walls, through the walls and the earth and the darkness, seeing the open sea stretch unbroken to the sunset, the golden dragons on the golden wind.

“You are lying,” the girl said fiercely, “you are making it up.”

He looked at her, startled. “Why should I lie, Arha?”

“To make me feel like a fool, and stupid, and afraid. To make yourself seem wise, and brave, and powerful, and a dragon-lord and all this and all that. You’ve seen dragons dancing, and the towers in Havnor, and you know all about everything. And I know nothing at all and haven’t been anywhere. But all you know is lies! You are nothing but a thief and a prisoner, and you have no soul, and you’ll never leave this place again. It doesn’t matter if there’s oceans and dragons and white towers and all that, because you’ll never see them again, you’ll never even see the light of the sun. All I know is the dark, the night underground. And that’s all there really is. That’s all there is to know, in the end. The silence, and the dark. You know everything, wizard. But I know one thing – the one true thing!”

He bowed his head. His long hands, copper-brown, were quiet on his knees. She saw the fourfold scar on his cheek. He had gone farther than she into the dark; he knew death better than she did, even death… A rush of hatred for him rose up in her, choking her throat for an instant. Why did he sit there so defenseless and so strong? Why could she not defeat him?

“This is why I have let you live,” she said suddenly, without the least forethought. “I want you to show me how the tricks of sorcerers are performed. So long as you have some art to show me, you’ll stay alive. If you have none, if it’s all foolery and lies, why then I’ll have done with you. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“Very well. Go on.”

He put his head in his hands a minute, and shifted his position. The iron belt kept him from ever getting quite comfortable, unless he lay down flat.

He raised his face at last and spoke very seriously. “Listen, Arha. I am a Mage, what you call a sorcerer. I have certain arts and powers. That’s true. It’s also true that here in the Place of the Old Powers, my strength is very little and my crafts don’t avail me. Now I could work illusion for you, and show you all kinds of wonders. That’s the least part of wizardry. I could work illusions when I was a child; I can do them even here. But if you believe them, they’ll frighten you, and you may wish to kill me if fear makes you angry. And if you disbelieve them, you’ll see them as only lies and foolery, as you say; and so I forfeit my life again. And my purpose and desire, at the moment, is to stay alive.”

That made her laugh, and she said, “Oh, you’ll stay alive awhile, can’t you see that? You are stupid! All right, show me these illusions. I know them to be false and won’t be afraid of them. I wouldn’t be afraid if they were real, as a matter of fact. But go ahead. Your precious skin is safe, for tonight, anyhow.”

At that he laughed, as she had a moment ago. They tossed his life back and forth between them like a ball, playing.

“What do you wish me to show you?”

“What can you show me?”

“Anything.”

“How you brag and brag!”

“No,” he said, evidently a little stung. “I do not. I didn’t mean to, anyway.”

“Show me something you think worth seeing. Anything!”

He bent his head and looked at his hands awhile. Nothing happened. The tallow candle in her lantern burned dim and steady. The black pictures on the walls, the bird-winged, flightless figures with eyes painted dull red and white, loomed over him and over her. There was no sound. She sighed, disappointed and somehow grieved. He was weak; he talked great things, but did nothing. He was nothing but a good liar, and not even a good thief. “Well,” she said at last, and gathered her skirts together to rise. The wool rustled strangely as she moved. She looked down at herself, and stood up in startlement.

The heavy black she had worn for years was gone; her dress was of turquoise-colored silk, bright and soft as the evening sky. It belled out full from her hips, and all the skirt was embroidered with thin silver threads and seed pearls and tiny crumbs of crystal, so that it glittered softly, like rain in April.

She looked at the magician, speechless.

“Do you like it?”

“Where-”

“It’s like a gown I saw a princess wear once, at the Feast of Sunreturn in the New Palace in Havnor,” he said, looking at it with satisfaction. “You told me to show you something worth seeing. I show you yourself.”

“Make it– make it go away.”

“You gave me your cloak,” he said as if in reproach. “Can I give you nothing? Well, don’t worry. It’s only illusion; see.”

He seemed not to raise a finger, certainly he said no word; but the blue splendor of silk was gone, and she stood in her own harsh black.

She stood still awhile.

“How do I know,” she said at last, “that you are what you seem to be?”

“You don’t,” said he. “I don’t know what I seem, to you.”

She brooded again. “You could trick me into seeing you as-” She broke off, for he had raised his hand and pointed upward, the briefest sketch of a gesture. She thought he was casting a spell, and drew back quickly towards the door; but following his gesture, her eyes found high in the dark arching roof the small square that was the spy hole from the treasury of the Twin Gods’ temple.

There was no light from the spy hole; she could see nothing, hear no one overhead there; but he had pointed, and his questioning gaze was on her.

Both held perfectly still for some time.

“Your magic is mere folly for the eyes of children,” she said clearly. “It is trickery and lies. I have seen enough. You will be fed to the Nameless Ones. I shall not come again.”

She took her lantern and went out, and sent the iron bolts home firm and loud. Then she stopped there outside the door and stood dismayed. What must she do?

How much had Kossil seen or heard? What had they been saying? She could not remember. She never seemed to say what she had intended to say to the prisoner. He always confused her with his talk about dragons, and towers, and giving names to the Nameless, and wanting to stay alive, and being grateful for her cloak to lie on. He never said what he was supposed to say. She had not even asked him about the talisman, which she still wore, hidden against her breast.

That was just as well, since Kossil had been listening.

Well, what did it matter, what harm could Kossil do? Even as she asked herself the question she knew the answer. Nothing is easier to kill than a caged hawk. The man was helpless, chained there in the cage of stone. The Priestess of the Godking had only to send her servant Duby to throttle him tonight; or if she and Duby did not know the Labyrinth this far, all she need do was blow poison-dust down the spy hole into the Painted Room. She had boxes and phials of evil substances, some to poison food or water, some that drugged the air, and killed, if one breathed that air too long. And he would be dead in the morning, and it would all be over. There would never be a light beneath the Tombs again.

Arha hastened through the narrow ways of stone to the entrance from the Undertomb, where Manan waited for her, squatting patient as an old toad in the dark. He was uneasy about her visits to the prisoner. She would not let him come with her all the way, so they had settled on this compromise. Now she was glad that he was there at hand. Him, at least, she could trust.

“Manan, listen. You are to go to the Painted Room, right now. Say to the man that you’re taking him to be buried alive beneath the Tombs.” Manan’s little eyes lit up. “Say that aloud. Unlock the chain, and take him to-” She halted, for she had not yet decided where she could best hide the prisoner.

“To the Undertomb,” said Manan, eagerly.

“No, fool. I said to say that, not do it. Wait-”

What place was safe from Kossil and Kossil’s spies? None but the deepest places underground, the holiest and most hidden places of the domain of the Nameless, where she dared not come. Yet would Kossil not dare almost anything? Afraid of the dark places she might be, but she was one who would subdue her fear to gain her ends. There was no telling how much of the plan of the Labyrinth she might actually have learned, from Thar, or from the Arha of the previous life, or even from secret explorations of her own in past yeas; Arha suspected her of knowing more than she pretended to know. But there was one way she surely could not have learned, the best-kept secret.

“You must bring the man where I lead you, and you must do it in the dark. Then when I bring you back here, you will dig a grave in the Undertomb, and make a coffin for it, and put it in the grave empty, and fill in the earth again, yet so that it can be felt and found if someone sought for it. A deep grave. Do you understand?”

“No,” said Manan, dour and fretful. “Little one, this trickery is not wise. It is not good. There should not be a man here! There will come a punishment-”

“An old fool will have his tongue cut out, yes! Do you dare tell me what is wise? I follow the orders of the Dark Powers. Follow me!”

“I’m sorry, little mistress, I’m sorry…”

They returned to the Painted Room. There she waited outside in the tunnel, while Manan entered and unlocked the chain from the hasp in the wall. She heard the deep voice ask, “Where now, Manan?” and the husky alto answer, sullenly, “You are to be buried alive, my mistress says. Under the Tombstones. Get up!” She heard the heavy chain crack like a whip.

The prisoner came out, his arms bound with Manan’s leather belt. Manan came behind, holding him like a dog on a short leash, but the collar was around his waist and the leash was iron. His eyes turned to her, but she blew out her candle and without a word set off into the dark. She fell at once into the slow but fairly steady pace that she usually kept when she was not using a light in the Labyrinth, brushing her fingertips very lightly but almost constantly along the walls on either side. Manan and the prisoner followed behind, much more awkward because of the leash, shuffling and stumbling along. But in the dark they must go; for she did not want either of them to learn this way.

A left turn from the Painted Room, and pass two openings; go right at the Four Ways, and pass the opening to the right; then a long curving way, and a flight of steps down, long, slippery, and much too narrow for normal human feet. Farther than these steps she had never gone.

The air was fouler here, very still, with a sharp odor to it. The directions were clear in her mind, even the tones of Thar’s voice speaking them. Down the steps (behind her, the prisoner stumbled in the pitch blackness, and she heard him gasp as Manan kept him afoot with a mighty jerk on the chain), and at the foot of the steps turn at once to the left. Hold the left, then for three openings, then the first right, then hold to the right. The tunnels curved and angled, none ran straight. “Then you must skirt the Pit,” said Thar’s voice in the darkness of her mind, “and the way is very narrow.”

She slowed her step, stooped over, and felt before her with one hand along the floor. The corridor now ran straight for a long way, giving false reassurance to the wanderer. All at once her groping hand, which never ceased to touch and sweep the rock before her, felt nothing. There was a stone lip, an edge: beyond the edge, void. To the right the wall of the corridor plunged down sheer into the pit. To the left there was a ledge or curb, not much more than a hand’s breadth wide.

“There is a pit. Face the wall to the left, press against it, and go sideways. Slide your feet. Keep hold of the chain, Manan… Are you on the ledge? It grows narrower. Don’t put your weight on your heels. So, I’m past the pit. Reach me your hand. There…”

The tunnel ran in short zigzags with many side openings. From some of these as they passed the sound of their footsteps echoed in a strange way, hollowly; and stranger than that, a very faint draft could be felt, sucking inward. Those corridors must end in pits like the one they had passed. Perhaps there lay, under this low part of the Labyrinth, a hollow place, a cavern so deep and so vast that the cavern of the Undertomb would be little in comparison, a huge black inward emptiness.

But above that chasm, where they went in the dark tunnels, the corridors grew slowly narrower and lower, until even Arha must stoop. Was there no end to this way?

The end came suddenly: a shut door. Going bent over, and a little faster than usual, Arha ran up against it, jarring her head and hands. She felt for the keyhole, then for the small key on her belt-ring, never used, the silver key with the haft shaped like a dragon. It fit, it turned. She opened the door of the Great Treasure of the Tombs of Atuan. A dry, sour, stale air sighed outward through the dark.

“Manan, you may not enter here. Wait outside the door.”

“He, but not I?”

“If you enter this room, Manan, you will not leave it. That is the law for all but me. No mortal being but I has ever left this room alive. Will you go in?”

“I will wait outside,” said the melancholy voice in the blackness. “Mistress, mistress, don’t shut the door-” ,

His alarm so unnerved her that she left the door ajar. Indeed the place filled her with a dull dread, and she felt some mistrust of the prisoner, pinioned though he was. Once inside, she struck her light. Her hands trembled. The lantern candle caught reluctantly; the air was close and dead. In the yellowish flicker that seemed bright after the long passages of night, the treasure room loomed about them, full of moving shadows.

There were six great chests, all of stone, all thick with a fine gray dust like the mold on bread; nothing else. The walls were rough, the roof low. The place was cold, with a deep and airless cold that seemed to stop the blood in the heart. There were no cobwebs, only the dust. Nothing lived here, nothing at all, not even the rare, small, white spiders of the Labyrinth. The dust was thick, thick, and every grain of it might be a day that had passed here where there was no time or light: days, months, years, ages all gone to dust.

“This is the place you sought,” Arha said, and her voice was steady. “This is the Great Treasure of the Tombs. You have come to it. You cannot ever leave it.”

He said nothing, and his face was quiet, but there was in his eyes something that moved her: a desolation, the look of one betrayed.

“You said you wanted to stay alive. This is the only place I know where you can stay alive. Kossil will kill you or make me kill you, Sparrowhawk. But here she cannot reach.”

Still he said nothing.

“You could never have left the Tombs in any case, don’t you see? This is no different. And at least you’ve come to… to the end of your journey. What you sought is here.”

He sat down on one of the great chests, looking spent. The trailing chain clanked harshly on the stone. He looked around at the gray walls and the shadows, then at her.

She looked away from him, at the stone chests. She had no wish at all to open them. She did not care what marvels rotted in them.

“You don’t have to wear that chain, in here.” She came to him and unlocked the iron belt, and unbuckled Manan’s leather belt from his arms. “I must lock the door, but when I come I will trust you. You know that you cannot leave– that you must not try? I am their vengeance, I do their will; but if I fail them -if you fail my trust– then they will avenge themselves. You must not try to leave the room, by hurting me or tricking me when I come. You must believe me.”

“I will do as you say,” he said gently.

“I’ll bring food and water when I can. There won’t be much. Water enough, but not much food for a while; I’m getting hungry, do you see? But enough to stay alive on. I may not be able to come back for a day or two days, perhaps even longer. I must get Kossil off the track. But I will come. I promise. Here’s the flask. Hoard it, I can’t come back soon. But I will come back.”

He raised his face to her. His expression was strange. “Take care, Tenar,” he said.