The Tombs of Atuan

“The Painted Room has a door, and a lock, and a spy hole, mistress. If you trust him with doors.”

“He has no powers, down here. Take him there, Manan.”

So Manan lugged him back, half again as far as they had come, too laboring and breathless to protest. When they entered the Painted Room at last, Arha took off her long, heavy winter cloak of wool, and laid it on the dusty floor. “Put him on that,” she said.

Manan stared in melancholy consternation, wheezing. “Little mistress-”

“I want the man to live, Manan. He'll die of the cold, look how he shakes now.”

“Your garment will be defiled. The Priestess' garment. He is an unbeliever, a man,” Manan blurted, his small eyes wrinkling up as if in pain.

“Then I shall burn the cloak and have another woven! Come on, Manan!”

At that he stooped, obedient, and let the prisoner flop off his back onto the black cloak. The man lay still as death, but the pulse beat heavy in his throat, and now and then a spasm made his body shiver as it lay.

“He should be chained,” said Manan.

“Does he look dangerous?” Arha scoffed; but when Manan pointed out an iron hasp set into the stones, to which the prisoner could be fastened, she let him go fetch a chain and band from the Room of Chains. He grumbled off down the corridors, muttering the directions to himself; he had been to and from the Painted Room before this, but never by himself.

In the light of her single lantern the paintings on the four walls seemed to move, to twitch, the uncouth human forms with great drooping wings, squatting and standing in a timeless dreariness.

She knelt and let water drop, a little at a time, into the prisoner's mouth. At last he coughed, and his hands reached up feebly to the flask. She let him drink. He lay back with his face all wet, besmeared with dust and blood, and muttered something, a word or two in a language she did not know.

Manan returned at last, dragging a length of iron links, a great padlock with its key, and an iron band which fitted around the man's waist and locked there. “It's not tight enough, he can slip out,” he grumbled as he locked the end link onto the ring set in the wall.

“No, look.” Feeling less fearful of her prisoner now, Arha showed that she could not force her hand between the iron band and the man's ribs. “Not unless he starves longer than four days.”

“Little mistress,” Manan said plaintively, “I do not question, but… what good is he as a slave to the Nameless Ones? He is a man, little one.”

“And you are an old fool, Manan. Come along now, finish your fussing.”

The prisoner watched them with bright, weary eyes.

“Where's his staff, Manan? There. I'll take that; it has magic in it. Oh, and this; this I'll take too,” and with a quick movement she seized the silver chain that showed at the neck of the man's tunic, and tore it off over his head, though he tried to catch her arms and stop her. Manan kicked him in the back. She swung the chain over him, out of his reach. “Is this your talisman, wizard? Is it precious to you? It doesn't look like much, couldn't you afford a better one? I shall keep it safe for you.” And she slipped the chain over her own head, hiding the pendant under the heavy collar of her woolen robe.

“You don't know what to do with it,” he said, very hoarse, and mispronouncing the words of the Kargish tongue, but clearly enough.

Manan kicked him again, and at that he made a little grunt of pain and shut his eyes.

“Leave off, Manan. Come.”

She left the room. Grumbling, Manan followed.

That night, when all the lights of the Place were out, she climbed the hill again, alone. She filled her flask from the well in the room behind the Throne, and took the water and a big, flat, unleavened cake of buckwheat bread down to the Painted Room in the Labyrinth. She set them just within the prisoner's reach, inside the door. He was asleep, and never stirred. She returned to the Small House, and that night she too slept long and sound.

In early afternoon she returned alone to the Labyrinth. The bread was gone, the flask was dry, the stranger was sitting up, his back against the wall. His face still looked hideous with dirt and scabs, but the expression of it was alert.

She stood across the room from him where he could not possibly reach her, chained as be was, and looked at him. Then she looked away. But there was nowhere particular to look. Something prevented her speaking. Her heart beat as if she were afraid. There was no reason to fear him. He was at her mercy.

“It's pleasant to have light,” he said in the soft but deep voice, which perturbed her.

“What's your name?” she asked, peremptory. Her own voice, she thought, sounded uncommonly high and thin.

“Well, mostly I'm called Sparrowhawk.”

“Sparrowhawk? Is that your name?”

“No.”

“What is your name, then?”

“I cannot tell you that. Are you the One Priestess of the Tombs?”

“Yes.”

“What are you called?”

“I am called Arha.”

“The one who has been devoured – is that what it means?” His dark eyes watched her intently. He smiled a little. “What is your name?”