The Tombs of Atuan by Ursula K. Le Guin Page B

the High Priest of the Inmost Temple of the Twin Gods. Long they fought, the man’s sorcery against the lightning of the gods, and the temple was destroyed around them. At last the High Priest broke the sorcerer’s witching-staff, broke in half his amulet of power, and defeated him. He escaped from the city and from the Kargish lands, and fled clear across Earthsea to the farthest west; and there a dragon slew him, because his power was gone. And since that day the power and might of the Inner Lands has ever waned. Now the High Priest was named Intathin, and he was the first of the house of Tarb, that lineage from which, after the fulfillment of the prophecies and the centuries, the Priest-Kings of Karego-At were descended, and from them, the Godkings of all Kargad. So it is that since the day of Intathin the power and might of the Kargish lands has ever grown. Those who came to rob the Tombs, they were sorcerers, trying and trying to get back the broken amulet of Erreth-Akbe. But it is still here, where the High Priest put it for safekeeping. And so are their bones. . . . ” Thar pointed at the ground under her feet.
    “Half of it is here,” Kossil said.
    “And the other half lost forever.”
    “How lost?” asked Arha.
    “The one half, in Intathin’s hand, was given by him to the Treasury of the Tombs, where it should lie safe forever. The other remained in the sorcerer’s hand, but he gave it before he fled to a petty king, one of the rebels, named Thoreg of Hupun. I do not know why he did so.”
    “To cause strife, to make Thoreg proud,” Kossil said. “And so it did. The descendants of Thoreg rebelled again when the house of Tarb ruled; and yet again they took arms against the first Godking, refusing to acknowledge him as either king or god. They were an accursed, ensorcelled race. They are all dead now.”
    Thar nodded. “The father of our present Godking, the Lord Who Has Arisen, put down that family of Hupun, and destroyed their palaces. When that was done, the half-amulet, which they had kept ever since the days of Erreth-Akbe and Intathin, was lost. No one knows what became of it. And that was a lifetime ago.”
    “It was thrown out as trash, no doubt,” Kossil said. “They say it doesn’t look like anything of value, the Ring of Erreth-Akbe. A curse upon it and upon all the things of the wizard-folk!” Kossil spat into the fire.
    “Have you seen the half that is here?” Arha asked of Thar.
    The thin woman shook her head. “It is in that treasury to which none may come but the One Priestess. It may be the greatest of all the treasures there; I do not know. I think perhaps it is. For hundreds ofyears the Inner Lands sent thieves and wizards here to try to steal it back, and they would pass by open coffers of gold, seeking that one thing. It is very long since Erreth-Akbe and Intathin lived, and yet still the story is known and told, both here and in the West. Most things grow old and perish, as the centuries go on and on. Very few are the precious things that remain precious, or the tales that are still told.”
    Arha brooded awhile and said, “They must have been very brave men, or very stupid, to enter the Tombs. Don’t they know the powers of the Nameless Ones?”
    “No,” Kossil said in her cold voice. “They have no gods. They work magic, and think they are gods themselves. But they are not. And when they die, they are not reborn. They become dust and bone, and their ghosts whine on the wind a little while till the wind blows them away. They do not have immortal souls.”
    “But what is this magic they work?” Arha asked, enthralled. She did not remember having said once that she would have turned away and refused to look at the ships from the Inner Lands. “How do they do it? What does it do?”
    “Tricks, deceptions, jugglery,” Kossil said.
    “Somewhat more,” said Thar, “if the tales be true even in part. The wizards of the West can raise and still the winds, and make