Behind those were rooms and courts, passages, corridors, towers, and at last the heavy outmost walls of the Great House of Roke, which would stand any assault of war or earthquake or the sea itself, being built not only of stone, but of incontestable magic. About that roofless court stood four high walls of stone. IN THE COURT OF THE fountain the sun of March shone through young leaves of ash and elm, and water leapt and fell through shadow and clear light. And hey, LeGuin does make up for that a great deal with the awesomeness of her dragons. But then Prince Arren does make this book, like the others, a coming of age tale about a young person coming to grips with themselves and their world. I could wish that rather than the (to me) rather uninteresting Prince Arren that Ged had a companion we knew from the earlier books, such as Tenar. More overtly philosophical than the first two Earthsea books, like them its allegorical quality is obvious, but this one is still brim full of adventure and invention-and of course like all LeGuin's works beautifully written. Ged believes that the wish for immortality is the root of evil. In this last book of the trilogy the now Archmage Ged journeys to that farthest shore-the ends of the earth-to defeat a wizard claiming to have conquered death-and draining out of the world music and magic as a result.
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