Search Worlds Without End

This novelette originally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, October-November 1999. It can also be found in the anthologies The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror: Thirteenth Annual Collection (2000), edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling, and The Mammoth Book of Fantasy (2001), edited by Mike Ashley. The story is included in the collection Tales from Earthsea (2001).

World Fantasy Award nominated novella. It originally appeared in the anthology Legends (1998), edited by Robert Silverberg. It was reprinted in Lightspeed, October 2012. The story can also be found in the collections Tales from Earthsea (2001) and The Found and the Lost: The Collected Novellas of Ursula K. Le Guin (2016).

On the High Marsh was first Published in the Collection: Tales From Earthsea, Published in 2001 by Harcourt.

It garnered a 2nd place finish in the 2002 Locus Awards for Best Novelette.

Locus Award winning and Hugo Award nominated short story. It originally appeared in the collection Tales from Earthsea (2001). The story can also be found in the anthologies Fantasy: The Best of 2001, edited by Karen Haber and Robert Silverberg, The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror: Fifteenth Annual Collection (2002), edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling, and The Mammoth Book of Sorcerers' Tales (2004), edited by Mike Ashley.

Locus Award winning and World Fantasy Award nominated novella. It originally appeared in the collection Tales from Earthsea (2001). The story can also be found in the anthology Year's Best Fantasy 2 (2002), edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer. It is included in the collection The Found and the Lost: The Collected Novellas of Ursula K. Le Guin (2016).

Ged was the greatest sorcerer in all Earthsea, but once he was called Sparrowhawk, a reckless youth, hungry for power and knowledge, who tampered with long-held secrets and loosed a terrible shadow upon the world. This is the tale of his testing, how he mastered the mighty words of power, tamed an ancient dragon, and crossed death's threshold to restore the balance.

When young Tenar is chosen as high priestess to the ancient and nameless Powers of the Earth, everything is taken away from her-home, family, possessions, even her name. She is now known only as Arha, the Eaten One, guardian of the labyrinthine Tombs of Atuan, shrouded in darkness. When a young wizard, Ged Sparrowhawk, comes to steal the Tombs' greatest hidden treasure, the Ring of Erreth-Akbe, Tenar's rightful duty is to protect the Tombs. But Ged also brings with him the light of magic and tales of a brighter world Tenar has never known. Will Tenar risk everything to escape the darkness that has become her domain?

Darkness threatens to overtake Earthsea: the world and its wizards are losing their magic. Despite being wearied with age, Ged Sparrowhawk -- Archmage, wizard, and dragonlord -- embarks on a daring, treacherous journey, accompanied by Enlad's young Prince Arren, to discover the reasons behind this devastating pattern of loss. Together they will sail to the farthest reaches of their world -- even beyond the realm of death -- as they seek to restore magic to a land desperately thirsty for it.

Book Four of Ursula K. Le Guin's Earthsea Cycle

Years ago, they had escaped together from the sinister Tombs of Atuan -- she, an isolated young priestess; he, a powerful wizard. Now she is a farmer's widow, having chosen for herself the simple pleasures of an ordinary life. And he is a broken old man, mourning the powers lost to him through no choice of his own.

Once, when they were young, they helped each other at a time of darkness and danger and shared an adventure like no other. Now they must join forces again, to help another in need -- the physically and emotionally scarred child whose own destiny has yet to be revealed.

Five stories of Ursula K. Le Guin's world-renowned realm of Earthsea are collected in one volume. Featuring two classic stories, two original tales, and a brand-new novella, as well as new maps and a special essay on Earthsea's history, languages, literature, and magic.

Table of Contents:

• Foreword - essay by Ursula K. Le Guin
• The Finder - (2001) - novella
• Darkrose and Diamond - (1999) - novelette
• The Bones of the Earth - (2001) - shortstory
• On the High Marsh - (2001) - novelette
• Dragonfly - (1998) - novella
• A Description of Earthsea - (2001) - shortfiction

The sorcerer Alder fears sleep. He dreams of the land of death, of his wife who died young and longs to return to him so much that she kissed him across the low stone wall that separates our world from the Dry Land-where the grass is withered, the stars never move, and lovers pass without knowing each other. The dead are pulling Alder to them at night. Through him they may free themselves and invade Earthsea.

Alder seeks advice from Ged, once Archmage. Ged tells him to go to Tenar, Tehanu, and the young king at Havnor. They are joined by amber-eyed Irian, a fierce dragon able to assume the shape of a woman.

The threat can be confronted only in the Immanent Grove on Roke, the holiest place in the world and there the king, hero, sage, wizard, and dragon make a last stand.

Le Guin combines her magical fantasy with a profoundly human, earthly, humble touch.