This
too comes from "The Finder,"
in Tales
from Earthsea, by Ursula K. Le Guin.
One winter night on Roke,
Medra, Veil and Ember share their deepest hopes:
". . . We
can do nothing for the dead.
But . . ."
"For
us," said Ember.
"For us who live, in hiding,
neither killed nor
killing.
The dead are dead.
The great and mighty go their way
unchecked.
All the hope left in the world is
in the people of no
account."
"Must we hide forever?"
"Spoken like a man," said Veil with her gentle, wounded smile.
"Yes,"
said Ember. "We must hide, and forever if need be.
Because
there's nothing left but being killed and killing,
beyond these shores . .
"
"But you
can't hide true power," Medra said.
"Not for long. It dies
in hiding, unshared."
"Magic
won't die on Roke," said Veil. . . .
Our job must be to keep that strength.
. . .
Hoard it, as a young dragon hoards up its fire.
And share it.
But only here . . .
where the great robbers and killers would least look for it,
since no one here is of any account.
And one day the dragon will come into
its strength.
If it takes a thousand years . . ."
"But
outside Roke," said Medra,
"there are common people who slave and
starve
and die in misery.
Must they do so for a thousand years, with no
hope?"
*
"I wasn't
well taught, in the City of Havnor," he said.
"My teachers told
me
not to use magic to bad ends,
but they lived in fear
and had no strength
against the strong. . .
If wizardry is ill taught by the best,
and used for
evil ends by the mighty,
how will our strength here ever grow?
What will the young dragon feed on?"
"This is
the center, said Veil.
"We must keep to the center. And wait."
"We must
give what we have to give," said Medra.
"If all but us are
slaves,
what's our freedom worth?"
*
"What can we do?" said Veil.
"Learn our strength!" said Medra.
"A
school," Ember said.
"Where the wise might come
to learn from one another,
to study the pattern . .
the Grove would shelter us."
"The
lords of war
despise scholars and schoolmasters,"
said Medra.
" I think they fear them too," said Veil.
So they
talked, that long winter,
and others talked with them. . . .
–