The Farthest Shore by Ursula K. Le Guin

back against the mast and sang. His voice was no longer high and sweet as when the music master of the Hall of Berila had trained it years ago, striking the harmonies on his tall harp; nowadays the higher tones of it were husky, and the deep tones had the resonance of a viol, dark and clear. He sang the Lament for the White Enchanter, that song which Elfarran made when she knew of Morred’s death and waited for her own. Not often is that song sung, nor lightly. Sparrowhawk listened to the young voice, strong, sure, and sad between the red sky and the sea, and the tears came into his eyes, blinding.
    Arren was silent for a while after that song; then he began to sing lesser, lighter tunes, softly, beguiling the great monotony of windless air and heaving sea and failing light, as night came on.
    When he ceased to sing everything was still, the wind down, the waves small, wood and rope barely creaking. The sea lay hushed, and over it the stars came out one by one. Piercing bright to the south a yellow light appeared and sent a shower and splintering of gold across the water.
    “Look! A beacon!” Then after a minute, “Can it be a star?”
    Sparrowhawk gazed at it awhile and finally said, “I think it must be the star Gobardon. It can be seen only in the South Reach. Gobardon means Crown. . . . Kurremkarmerruk taughtus that, sailing still farther south would bring, one by one, eight more stars clear of the horizon under Gobardon, making a great constellation, some say of a running man, others say of the Rune Agnen. The Rune of Ending.”
    They watched it clear the restless sea-horizon and shine forth steadily.
    “You sang Elfarran’s song,” Sparrowhawk said, “as if you knew her grief, and you’d made me know it too. . . . Of all the histories of Earthsea, that one has always held me most. The great courage of Morred against despair; and Serriadh who was born beyond despair, the gentle king. And her, Elfarran. When I did the greatest evil I have ever done, it was to her beauty that I thought I turned; and I saw her—for a moment I saw Elfarran.”
    A cold thrill went up Arren’s back. He swallowed and sat silent, looking at the splendid, baleful, topaz-yellow star.
    “Which of the heroes is yours?” the mage asked, and Arren answered with a little hesitancy, “Erreth-Akbe.”
    “Because he was the greatest?”
    “Because he might have ruled all Earthsea, but chose not to, and went on alone and died alone, fighting the dragon Orm on the shore of Selidor.”
    They sat awhile, each following his own thoughts, and then Arren asked, still watching yellow Gobardon, “Is it true, then, that the dead can be brought back into life and made to speak to living souls, by magery?”
    “By the spells of Summoning. It is in our power. But it is seldom done, and I doubt that it is ever wisely done. In this the Master Summoner agrees with me; he does not use or teach the Lore of Paln, in which such spells are contained. The greatest of them were made by one called the Grey Mage of Paln, a thousand years ago. He summoned up the spirits of the heroes and mages, even Erreth-Akbe, to give counsel to the Lords of Paln in their wars and government. But the counsel of the dead is not profitable to the living. Paln came on evil times, and the Grey Mage was driven forth; he died nameless.”
    “Is it a wicked thing, then?”
    “I should call it a misunderstanding, rather. A misunderstanding of life. Death and life are the same thing—like the two sides of my hand, the palm and the back. And still the palm and the back are not the same. . . . They can be neither separated, nor mixed.”
    “Then no one uses those spells now?”
    “I have known only one man who used them freely, not reckoning their risk. For they are risky, dangerous beyond any other magery. Death and life are like the two sides of my hand, I said, but the truth is we do not know what life is or what death is. To claim power over what you do not understand is