The Tombs of Atuan

Over the summer, Thar dies of an illness, leaving Arha alone with Kossil. Despite Arha’s technically higher status, she has learned not to push Kossil. Since her conversation with Penthe, Arha has come to understand unfaith. Kossil does not believe in any gods; she only worships power. She views the worship of the Nameless Ones as meaningless ritual and would get rid of the One Priestess if she thought she could get away with it.

Over several months, Arha continues to explore the Labyrinth, taking Manan with her. She trusts only Manan and wants him to be able to navigate in case of emergency. One night late in the winter, she enters the Undertomb to escape the cold and heads toward the Labyrinth, wishing to visit the Painted Room, her favorite place in the Tombs. However, as she enters the great cavern, she sees a faint light. At first, she thinks it must be imagining it, as no light has ever been permitted here. As she approaches, however, she sees a person in the cavern with a light burning at the top of a staff.

For the first time, Arha sees the cavern, and she is awed by the beauty of the immense roof and walls covered with glittery crystal and limestone filigree. Then she focuses on the person with the light, a dark-skinned man. Horrified that the Nameless Ones have not already struck him dead for daring to bring light into their sacred darkness, she screams at him to leave. The man turns to stare at her for a moment before he runs, Arha chasing him. When he enters the passage into the Labyrinth, Arha closes the iron door, trapping him. She pauses to consider her options. She does not want to tell Kossil immediately but knows she should. She concludes that the man must be a sorcerer from the Inner Lands who has come to steal the amulet of Erreth-Akbe.

Arha rushes out of the Labyrinth and to the spy hole inside her Small House, which is right above the place in the Labyrinth where she trapped the man. When she peeks inside, she is momentarily blinded by the light from his staff. Her vision clears, and she watches the man inspect his surroundings with a bemused expression. He waves his staff and speaks several words, trying to open the door. When he fails, he laughs. Eventually, he lies down on the rock floor. Arha notices a small crescent-shaped talisman tied around his neck but thinks little of it. She watches him sleep for a while before closing the spy hole.

The next day, Arha returns to the spy hole after completing her duties, but the man is no longer there. She recalls that Thar taught her the Labyrinth extends and spirals out in branches and dead ends for over twenty miles. She fears that the man has wandered off and will die of thirst and starvation before she can find him again. She thinks she will have to send Manan in to find his dead body, and the idea is so unbearable that she cries.

Arha tells Kossil about the intruder. Kossil believes he will run out of supplies and die within five or six days, and then she can send her warden to drag the body out. Arha insists that she wants to find the man alive. Kossil does not understand, and Arha cannot explain that the thought of him dying as the three prisoners did is unbearable to her.

The next day, Arha moves from spy hole to spy hole in hopes of finding the man. On the third day, she recalls a passage where one can hear running water behind the stones. She thinks a man in desperate need of water might stay there in hopes of reaching it. The passage is at one of the farthest ends of the tunnels, and she goes outside beyond the Wall of the Place to a spy hole hidden among the rocks. She finds him there, weakly chipping at the stone with a small knife, trying to reach the water behind it. The light on his staff is faint and flickering.

Arha calls out to him through the spy hole, giving him directions to the Painted Room and telling him to wait there. She shakes with giddy nerves as she heads for the spy hole above the Painted Room. She thinks she could watch him for days through that spy hole, sending him small amounts of water, as she wishes to keep him alive. The next morning, she checks the Painted Room through the spy hole. Lowering a small lit candle through the hole, she sees him sitting on the floor.

She gives him a long list of directions to the Treasury, suggesting he might find water there as well. He nods and leaves the Painted Room, following her instructions. She worries that he will get lost and die in the tunnels and she will have to send Manan to fetch his body. At the thought, she curls up and rocks back and forth in pain.

Later, Kossil asks Arha if the man is dead yet. Arha says she will send Manan to find him. Together, Arha and Manan search the tunnels until they find the man collapsed. She orders Manan to carry him back to the Painted Room. Manan objects, begging Arha to let him kill the man, but Arha refuses. She takes the man’s staff and the talisman from around his neck. Then she and Manan lock him in the room and leave.

The next day, she visits the man, who calls himself Sparrowhawk and explains that he is from a city called Havnor in the Inner Lands and has come to rob the Tombs. Arha calls him an unbeliever, but he insists that he believes in the Nameless Ones and has faced them before in other places. Arha notices four parallel scars that run down the side of his face and asks if they came from a dragon. He says the scars came from his battle with a Dark Power like the Nameless Ones. She demands that he stop lying and boasting to make himself sound more important. She is the One Priestess, reborn a thousand times, and she has the power to order his death or lock him in this room until he starves. Sparrowhawk nods and does not speak again, and she leaves feeling shaken.