She was a tall girl of about his own age, very sallow, almost white-skinned; her mother, they said in the village, was from Osskil or some such foreign land. Her hair fell long and straight like a fall of black water. Ged thought her very ugly, but he had a desire to please her, to win her admiration, that grew on him as they talked. She made him tell all the story of his tricks with the mist that had defeated the Kargish warriors, and she listened as if she wondered and admired, but she spoke no praise. And soon she was off on another tack: “Can you call the birds and beasts to you?” she asked.

“I can,” said Ged.

He knew there was a falcon's nest in the cliffs above the meadow, and he summoned the bird by its name. It came, but it would not light on his wrist, being put off no doubt by the girl's presence. It screamed and struck the air with broad barred wings, and rose up on the wind.

“What do you call that kind of charm, that made the falcon come?”

“A spell of Summoning.”

“Can you call the spirits of the dead to come to you, too?”

He thought she was mocking him with this question, because the falcon had not fully obeyed his summons. He would not let her mock him. “I might if I chose,” he said in a calm voice.

“Is it not very difficult, very dangerous, to summon a spirit?”

“Difficult, yes. Dangerous?” He shrugged.

This time be was almost certain there was admiration in her eyes.

“Can you make a love-charm?”

“That is no mastery.”

“True,” says she, “any village witch can do it. Can you do Changing spells? Can you change your own shape, as wizards do, they say?”

Again he was not quite sure that she did not ask the question mockingly, and so again he replied, “I might if I chose.”

She began to beg him to transform himself into anything he wished – a hawk, a bull, a fire, a tree.