A glossary of people, places & objects in Earthsea

Now showing glossary items relating to buildings & streets

Ath's House

Old two-storey, stone house with a courtyard at the end of a lane in Telio on Pody, in which the mage Ath once stayed; originally a handsome house with high-ceilinged, elegant rooms, it was very dilapidated at the time of 'The Finder' [TfE]

Sources: The Finder, TfE

Back door

The main entrance to the Great House of Roke. The doorway is of solid ivory, cut from a tooth of the Great Dragon, said to be found on Mount Onn. The door is of polished horn, carved on the inside with the motif of the Thousand-leaved Tree. There is no grand entrance to the school, however: from the outside it appears as an ordinary small wooden door, opening straight from a narrow street near one corner of the outer wall of the Great House. The door is guarded by the Master Doorkeeper, one of the nine Masters of Roke, and it is said that no spell could open it if the Doorkeeper has closed it

Sources: The School for Wizards, WoE; Dragonfly, TfE

'"…from inside you see that the door is entirely different---it's made out of horn, with a tree carved on it, and the frame is made out of a tooth, one tooth of a dragon that lived long, long before Erreth-Akbe, before Morred, before there were people on Earthsea. … They found the tooth on Mount Onn, in Havnor, at the center of the world. And the leaves of the tree are carved so thin that the light shines through them, but the door's so strong that if the Doorkeeper shuts it no spell could ever open it."'

[Dragonfly, TfE]

Big House

House in the Place of the Tombs on Atuan where the lesser priestesses and novices live. Stone built, it contains a narrow refectory, long low-beamed dormitories, attic weaving room, workrooms, kitchens, cellars and store rooms, and a courtyard with water cisterns and a well. The cellar beneath the kitchens has a concealed spyhole to the Labyrinth

Sources: The Wall around the Place, ToA; The Man Trap, ToA

Boatwright Street

Street in the old part of Havnor City, near the harbour and the shipyards, where lives a small community of people from Paln; has a tavern

'The houses were ancient, crowded close, with the bridges between roof and roof that gave Havnor Great Port a second, airy web of streets high above its paved ones./…[The roof] was joined to other roofs by a bridge on each side, so that there was a regular cross-roads and thoroughfare across it. Awnings were set up by the low parapets, and the breeze from the harbor cooled the shaded air.'

[Dolphin, OW]

Colleges

Centres of learning termed colleges are located on Ea and the Enlades; described as old, they may date from the ancient monarchy. Whether they teach both men and women isn't stated. The Roke School of Wizardry also appears to have a similar function, though its learning is divulged only to men

Sources: The Dragon Council, OW

Cottages

See Huts

Council Room

Long dark-walled, low-beamed room in the Great House of Roke in which the Masters of Roke meet. It has a row of high, pointed windows under which a table is set, a stone hearth opposite, and is reached by a corridor whose walls are engraved with runes, some inlaid with silver

Sources: The Masters of Roke, FS; Dragonfly, TfE

'Arren followed him into a long, low-beamed room, where on one side a fire burned in a stone hearth, its flames reflecting in the oaken floor, and on the other side pointed windows let in the heavy light of a foggy morning.'

[The Masters of Roke, FS]

Court of the Fountain

Central roofless court of the Great House of Roke. The first part of the Great House to be built, it forms its heart and is the home of the Archmage. Open to the sky, the little walled court contains a fountain, small central grass lawn, marble paving, and various trees including rowan, ash and elm

Sources: The School for Wizards, WoE; The Rowan Tree, FS; The Finder, TfE

'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. About that roofless court stood four high walls of stone. … the central place of the House is that small court far within the walls, where the fountain plays and the trees stand in rain or sun or starlight.'

[The Rowan Tree, FS]

Court of the Terrenon

Also known as: Terrenon, Court of the

Tall, stone tower-keep on a hilltop in the Keksemt Moors, home of Lord Benderesk and Lady Serret. The Stone of Terrenon is locked in an underground room

'…like a tall white tooth in the dusk…'

[The Hawk's Flight, WoE]

Garden door

Second door of the Great House of Roke, called Medra's Gate after the first Master Doorkeeper. It is oak with an iron bolt, and leads to gardens and fields by Roke Knoll. Like the back door, it is kept by the Doorkeeper

Sources: The Finder, TfE

'It was uncarved oak, black and massive, with an iron bolt worn thin with age.'

[Dragonfly, TfE]

God-Brothers, Temple of the

See Temple of the God-Brothers

Godking, Temple of the

See Temple of the Godking

Great Hall of Gemal Sea-born

See Throne room

Great House of Roke

Also known as: Roke, Great House of, House of the Wise, House of Roke

Location of the School of Wizardry on Roke, built shortly after the foundation of the school in 650. A great castle-like building of grey stone with slate roofs on a hill above Thwil town. The main doorway, called the back door, is of ivory; its door is of horn; the oak garden door leads to Roke Knoll. Within is the central, roofless Court of the Fountain, the Court of Seeming, the Room of Shelves where lore-books are kept, the Hearth Hall where feasts are held, a Council Room where the Masters of Roke meet, the Chanter's Tower, a magicians' workroom in the south tower, a dining hall or refectory, kitchen, gallery, healing-chambers, wardrobe room, Doorkeeper's chamber and numerous small sleeping cells. Outside are kitchen gardens with vegetables, herbs, soft fruit and fruit trees

Sources: The School for Wizards, WoE; The Rowan Tree, FS; The Masters of Roke, FS; Orm Embar, FS; The Finder, TfE; Dragonfly, TfE; A Description of Earthsea, TfE

'…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.'

[The Rowan Tree, FS]

Great Treasury of the Tombs

See Treasury of the Tombs

Hall of the Throne

Ancient and semi-derelict temple of the Nameless Ones at the Place of the Tombs on Atuan; a vast low hall with a crumbling dome. The Throne Room has double rows of columns and a huge black jewelled throne, the Empty Throne, on a high platform of red-veined marble. Behind lies a warren of small rooms, including storerooms, treasure rooms, robing rooms, attics & basements; one cell contains a trapdoor, the only exit from the Labyrinth; another has a small trapdoor to the Room of Chains within a minor labyrinth off the Undertomb which lies beneath the Hall of the Throne. The oldest temple in the Kargad Lands, it is destroyed when Ged & Tenar escape from the Labyrinth with the Ring of Erreth-Akbe

Sources: The Eaten One, ToA; The Prisoners, ToA; Light under the Hill, ToA; The Anger of the Dark, ToA

'Through cracks in the roof of the Hall of the Throne, gaps between columns where a whole section of masonry and tile had collapsed, unsteady sunshine shone aslant. … Dead leaves of weeds that had forced up between marble pavement-tiles were outlined with frost, and crackled, catching on the long black robes of the priestesses.'

'…the altars, the alcoves behind and beneath the altars, the rooms of chests and boxes, the contents of the chests and boxes, the passages and attics, the dusty hollow under the dome where hundreds of bats nested, the basements and underbasements that were the anterooms of the corridors of darkness.'

[The Eaten One, ToA/Light under the Hill, ToA]

High Creek farm

Farm owned by Flint and Tenar, presumably in the Middle Valley on Gont; later sold to Tholy for three Havnorian ivory pieces

Sources: The Master, T

House of the Great Ones

Temple of the Children of the Open Sea to the Great Ones; located on their largest raft. It has idols of god figures, carved from a single tree and depicting a mixture of dolphin, fish, man and seabird

'This raft was larger and higher out of the water than any other, made of logs forty feet in length and four or five feet wide, blackened and smooth with use and weather. Strangely carven statues of wood stood about the several shelters or enclosures on it, and tall poles bearing tufts of seabirds' feathers stood at the four corners. … the large shelter near by: a kind of temple, it appeared to be, with a square design of great complexity above the doorway, and the doorjambs made of logs carved in the shape of grey whales sounding.'

[The Children of the Open Sea, FS]

House of the One Priestess

See Small House

House of the Sea-Guild

Also known as: Sea-Guild, House of the

Place in Gont Port which deals with local shipping business, presumably run by the local Seamasters. Has a buttery where people such as longshoremen, shipwrights and weatherworkers gather for food and conversation

Sources: Hunting, WoE

House of the Wise

See Great House of Roke

Houses, town

Buildings in towns or cities in the Archipelago are typically constructed of dressed stone, with roofs of slate or red tile. Unlike the rural huts, which are often single roomed, Vetch's 'spacious and strong-beamed' house^a in the town of Ismay clearly has several rooms. The house of the wealthy merchant Golden in Glade (Havnor island) has two storeys, as does Ath's House in Telio (Pody island). Buildings in towns of the Kargad Lands are typically built from yellow clay brick with red tile roofs

Sources: The Western Mountains, ToA; Iffish, WoE (a); The Finder, TfE; Darkrose and Diamond, TfE

Related entries: Building materials; Kargish architecture

Huts

Also known as: Cottages

Cottages or huts with thatched rooves are the usual dwellings of the rural inhabitants of the Archipelago, usually constructed from wood. The poorer houses would be single roomed, low and windowless, with a central crosspole supporting the roof, earthern floors and a central firepit. Better houses might have a hearth and chimney, a sleeping area separate from the main room, possibly other back rooms, one or more shuttered windows, and perhaps a wooden floor. Conical roofs with an overhang 'like the fat red caps of toadstools'^a are found on Sattins island in the East Reach

Sources: The Rule of Names, W12Q (a); Warriors in the Mist, WoE; The Shadow, WoE

'The mage's house, though large and soundly built of timber, with hearth and chimney rather than a firepit, was like the huts of the Ten Alders village: all one room, with a goatshed built on to one side. There was a kind of alcove in the west wall of the room, where Ged slept. Over his pallet was a window that looked out on the sea, but most often the shutters must be closed against the great winds that blew all winter from the west and the north.'

[The Shadow, WoE]

Related entries: Houses, town; Building materials

Inns

Also known as: Lodgehouses

Inns are found in towns on many islands in the central Archipelago and the Reaches, including Lorbanery, Semel, Way, Iffish and Sattins; they provide accommodation and food to travellers, as well as beer or wine to townsfolk. The inn at Ismay on Iffish is called The Harrekki. Ged pays two silver trade-counters for several nights' accommodation at the inn in Lorbanery.

In other places, such as Serd (Ninety Isles), hospitality to travellers is provided at a Sea-House, and Astowell has a place called a lodgehouse; taverns or pothouses seem to provide drink, but usually not food or accommodation

Sources: The Rule of Names, W12Q; Hunted, WoE; Iffish, WoE; Lorbanery, FS; On the High Marsh, TfE

Iron door

Underground door between the Labyrinth and the Undertomb at the Place of the Tombs; sealable from the Undertomb side with a long iron lever in a fashion that resists Ged's opening spells. It has a pocked surface

'He spoke, one word only, in a low voice. "Emenn," he said, and then again, louder, "Emenn!" And the iron door rattled in its jambs, and low echoes rolled down the vaulted tunnel like thunder, and it seemed to Arha that the floor beneath her shook. / But the door stayed fast.'

[Light under the Hill, ToA]

Isolate Tower

Tower on the furthest northmost cape of Roke Island, thirty miles from the Great House; home of the Master Namer. Here students come to learn lists of names in Old Speech. The tower houses the Book of Names of the Mage Ath, as well as many lesser books of names, maps and charts

'…to the furthest northmost cape, where stands the Isolate Tower. There by himself lived the Master Namer… No farm or dwelling lay within miles of the Tower. Grim it stood above the northern cliffs…'

[The School for Wizards, WoE]

Kargish architecture

A typical Kargish town is built of yellow clay brick with red tile roofs and is walled around with overhanging battlements, a single gate and watchtowers at each of the four corners. Houses in the desert of Hur-at-Hur have thick walls with window slits

Sources: The Western Mountains, ToA; Palaces, OW

Related entries: Building materials; Houses, town

King's House

See New Palace

Labyrinth

An extensive maze of tunnels under the Place of the Tombs with a network of spyholes; the Labyrinth guards the treasures of the Tombs of Atuan, trapping any who try to steal them. Believed to be ancient, the Labyrinth's origins are unknown. It contains the mural-decorated Painted Room, Room of Bones, Six Ways, the long Outmost Tunnel by the river, and, in its heart, guarded by a pit, the Great Treasury of the Tombs. Less sacred than the Undertomb, which it adjoins, the Labyrinth can only be accessed via the Undertomb by an iron door, which can be sealed via a lever on the Undertomb side. Unlike the Undertomb, light is permitted within the Labyrinth, but there are no landmarks; the greyish-yellow stone-lined tunnels are all alike, about five feet wide by twelve to fifteen feet high with a vaulted roof. The maze extends from the Hall of the Throne to the river half a mile away, but the distance underground is many times greater, about twenty miles in total. No map exists; the only way of negotiating the maze is to remember turnings taken and passed; these instructions are passed from priestess to priestess without ever being written down. The Labyrinth is at least partially demolished by an earthquake when Ged and Tenar escape with the Ring of Erreth-Akbe

Sources: Dreams and Tales, ToA; Light under the Hill, ToA; The Anger of the Dark, ToA

'There was a weariness in that tracing of the vast, meaningless web of ways; the legs got tired and the mind got bored, forever reckoning up the turnings and the passages behind and to come. It was wonderful, laid out in the solid rock underground like the streets of a great city; but it had been made to weary and confuse the mortal walking in it, and even its priestess must feel it to be nothing, in the end, but a great trap.'

[Light under the Hill, ToA]

Further information on Labyrinth

Library of the Kings

Famous ancient library, possibly on Havnor or Enlad; destroyed by the time of the Dark Years

Sources: The Finder, TfE

Lodgehouses

See Inns

Magicians' workroom

Room in the south tower of the Roke School of Wizardry crammed with equipment for alchemy, glass-blowing, metal refining and healing

'…a magicians' workroom cluttered with retorts and alembics and great-bellied, crook-necked bottles, thick-walled furnaces and tiny heating-lamps, tongs, bellows, stands, pliers, pipes, a thousand boxes and vials and stoppered jugs marked with Hardic or more secret runes, and all such paraphernalia of alchemy, glass-blowing, metal-refining, and the arts of healing…'

[Orm Embar, FS]

Mill Lane

Lane probably in Oak Village in Middle Valley on Gont

Sources: Home, T

Nepp, Seawall of

See Seawall of Nepp

Net House

In the Dark Years, meeting hall by the wharf in Thwil on the island of Roke where fisherwomen mended nets and people gathered to listen to readings from books of history

Sources: The Finder, TfE

New Palace

Also known as: Palace of Maharion, King's House

Main palace in Havnor City on Havnor. The throne room dates from the reign of Gemal Sea-born; his heirs built a larger palace around it, and Heru and her son Maharion raised three towers above it. At the restoration of the Archipelagan monarchy, Lebannen rebuilds the palace and has his court there. Within sight of the harbour, it's described as on the other side of the city from the River House in the north. As well as the throne room, the walled palace contains an audience room (the Long Room), meeting room, banquet hall, marble roof terrace, school, the king's dressing room & bedroom, and numerous anterooms, offices & guest suites; it is topped by the Tower of the Queen, Tower of Alabaster and the Tower of the Kings, in which the sword of Erreth-Akbe is set, and surrounded by gardens with roses, flowering shrubs, willows, fountains & pools

Sources: Palaces, OW; The Dragon Council, OW

'…from the broad outer steps of the palace to high anterooms, staircases with gilded banisters, inner offices with tapestried walls, across floors of tile and marble and oak, under ceilings coffered, beamed, vaulted, painted,…'

[Palaces, OW]

Oak Farm

Farmstead of Flint and Tenar, later owned by their son Spark, half a mile from (presumably) Oak Village in Middle Valley on Gont. Located by a grove of oaks, the stone farmhouse is built into the hillside; it has small-paned windows, a stone-floored kitchen, pantry, cool-room, dairy, hall, living room, two bedrooms and a loft. The farm comprises four fields (growing flax among other crops), sheep & cattle pasture, apple & pear orchard, raspberry canes, bean patch, hay barn, lean-to, woodhouse, well-house, pump, two tenants' cottages and a family graveyard; red wine and sheepskins are the major produce mentioned

Sources: Frontispiece map, T; A Bad Thing, T; Going to the Falcon's Nest, T; The Dolphin, T; Home, T; Winter, T; The Master, T

'Beyond the cool-room was the dairy. The house was built against a low hill, and both those rooms ran back into the hill like cellars, though on a level with the rest of the house.'

[Home, T]

Old Mage's House

Timber-built house on the wind-swept Overfell a little north of Re Albi on Gont, home successively to Heleth, Ogion and Tenar, Ged & Tehanu. Variously described as 'large and soundly built'^a and 'a low, small house'^b, it has a large single room with a polished oak floor containing a sleeping alcove, larder, hearth, chimney and one or more shuttered windows. Outside there is a goat shed, milking shed, henhouse, poultry yard, woodshed, springhouse, small orchard with peach & plum trees, vegetable patch and goat pasture. Tehanu and The Other Wind mention a well, though in A Wizard of Earthsea, Ogion fetches water from a local spring. Below the house, steep boulder-strewn fields run down to the sea; to its north, the Overfell becomes sheer cliff; inland lies forest

Sources: The Shadow, WoE (a); Going to the Falcon's Nest, T (b); Hawks, T; Mending the Green Pitcher, OW; The Bones of the Earth, TfE

'The mage's house, though large and soundly built of timber, with hearth and chimney rather than a firepit, was like the huts of the Ten Alders village: all one room, with a goatshed built on to one side. There was a kind of alcove in the west wall of the room, where Ged slept. Over his pallet was a window that looked out on the sea, but most often the shutters must be closed against the great winds that blew all winter from the west and the north.'

[The Shadow, WoE]

Otter's House

Small hut or house at the edge of the Immanent Grove on Roke, in a meadow by the Thwilburn. Built by Medra (Otter) & Elehal, and possibly later occupied by other Patterners, though when Irian stays there in around 1058 it appears to have been empty for some time. Eight years later, it's described as decrepit

Sources: Dragonfly, TfE; Rejoining, OW

'…a low, moss-ridden roof half hidden by the afternoon shadows of the trees.'

[Dragonfly, TfE]

Painted Room

Also known as: Room of Pictures

Mural-decorated room in the Labyrinth on Atuan. The murals depict 'bird-winged, flightless figures with eyes painted dull red and white'^a, which may represent non-reincarnated spirits of Archipelagan people trapped in the sterile afterlife of the dry land. The date at which they were painted is unknown, as is the artist/s. No similar paintings are found elsewhere in the Place of the Tombs. The room has a door with iron bolts and a large spy hole in its arched roof, located in the treasury of the Temple of the God-Brothers

Sources: Light under the Hill, ToA; The Great Treasure, ToA (a); Palaces, OW

'[Arha] was going to the Painted Room. She liked sometimes to go there and study the strange wall drawings that leapt out of the dark at the gleam of her candle: men with long wings and great eyes, serene and morose. No one could tell her what they were, there were no such paintings elsewhere in the Place, but she thought she knew; they were the spirits of the damned, who are not reborn.'

[Light under the Hill, ToA]

Related entries: Decorative arts

Palace of Maharion

See New Palace

Place of Atuan

See Place of the Tombs

Place of the Tombs

Also known as: Place, the, Place of Atuan
Titles: Most Sacred Place of the Tombs

Sacred place in the interior of the island of Atuan where the Tombs of Atuan and Hall of the Throne are located, as well as the Temple of the Godking, Temple of the God-Brothers, Small House, Big House, accommodations for eunuch wardens, slaves & guards, farm buildings, store rooms, stables, barn, goat pens, sheep folds & apple/peach orchard. Around 200 people live there. Set in the desert, half a mile from a river, hemmed in by the Western Mountains and two days' walk from the coast; the nearest town is over 20 miles away. Though it's the oldest and most holy place in the Kargad Lands, by the time of The Tombs of Atuan, few pilgrims visit and the Godking no longer consults the One Priestess

'It looked like a little town, seen from a distance, from up on the dry hills westward where nothing grew but sage, wire-grass in straggling clumps, small weeds and desert herbs.'

[The Wall around the Place, ToA]

Further information on Place of the Tombs

Place, the

See Place of the Tombs

Pothouses

See Taverns

Prisoners' Door

See Red rock door

Queen Heru's Tower

See Tower of the Queen

Queen's House

See River House

Queen's Tower

See Tower of the Queen

Re Albi mansion house

The manor house of the Lord of Re Albi is built on a rocky outcrop above the Overfell, up the hill from Re Albi. Surrounded by hay fields and cherry & walnut orchards, it has marble external steps and marble floors

Sources: Ogion, T; Finding Words, T; The Master, T

Red rock door

Also known as: Prisoners' Door

Door to the Undertomb at the Place of the Tombs on Atuan, in an outcropping of red lava near the Tomb Wall. It can only be opened from outside, using a long-shafted iron key with two ornate wards (one of the ring of keys)

'A few yards down the slope an outcropping of red lava made a stair or little cliff in the hill. When she went down to it and stood on the level before it, facing the rocks, Arha realized that they looked like a rough doorway, four feet high.'

[The Prisoners, ToA]

River House

Also known as: Queen's House

Small, beautiful palace on the northern edge of Havnor City on Havnor, built fitting into the old city wall, with a shady courtyard, halls, anterooms, a dark inner audience room, and balconies over the River Serrenen. Built by Queen Heru, and frequently called the Queen's House, Lebannen had it rebuilt on ascending the throne, and uses it for summer festivities, as a retreat and to meet his mistresses

Sources: Palaces, OW; The Dragon Council, OW; Dolphin, OW

'…it was a lovely, peaceful place, sparsely furnished, with dark, polished, uncarpeted floors. Ranks of narrow door-windows slid aside to open up the whole side of a room to a view of the willows and the river, and one could walk out onto deep wooden balconies built over the water.'

[ The Dragon Council, OW]

Roke School

See School of Wizardry

Roke, Great House of

See Great House of Roke

Room of Bones

Room in the Labyrinth of the Place of the Tombs where the remains of some of those who died within the Labyrinth are left

Sources: The Man Trap, ToA

Room of Chains

Large underground room at the Place of the Tombs which houses prisoners. Accessed via a minor labyrinth off the Undertomb, it lies beneath the Hall of the Throne. It has a wooden door without lock, walls with rings driven into the rock, and iron chains with padlocks; the ceiling has a small wooden trapdoor to one of the rooms behind the Empty Throne

Sources: The Prisoners, ToA; The Man Trap, ToA

'…a large low room, walled with hewn stone and lighted by one fuming torch hung from a chain.'

[The Prisoners, ToA]

Room of Pictures

See Painted Room

School of Wizardry

Also known as: Roke School, College on Roke

School of magic and central home of wizardry, founded in around 650 by Elehal, Yahan, Medra and others of the group called the women of the Hand; later ruled by the Archmage and nine Masters of Roke. Its ethics are codified in the Rule of Roke. Located in the Great House of Roke at Thwil Town, as well as the Isolate Tower & Immanent Grove. Boys come to the school from all over the Archipelago to learn the high arts of magic, and only here is it considered that true wizards are made. At the time Ged attends as a boy, there are around a hundred students, all male.

The Archmage and Masters hold considerable political power in the kingless years, but after the restoration of the Archipelagan monarchy and the loss of the Archmage, the political role of the school is in doubt; for example, the sorcerer Ivory says: '"Roke is no longer where the power is in Earthsea. That's the Court in Havnor, now. Roke lives on its great past, defended by a thousand spells against the present day. And inside those spell-walls, what is there? Quarreling ambitions, fear of anything new, fear of young men who challenge the power of the old. And at the center, nothing. An empty courtyard. The Archmage will never return"'^a

Sources: The School for Wizards, WoE; The Finder, TfE; Dragonfly, TfE (a); A Description of Earthsea, TfE

Sea-Guild, House of the

See House of the Sea-Guild

Sea-House

Lodging house, found on Serd and other islands of the Inmost Sea, which provides free food and lodging to travellers and traders, financed by the local township. The Sea-House of Serd has a long raftered hall where guests sleep on pallets

'He went to the Sea-House of Serd, where travellers and merchants ate together of good fare provided by the township, and might sleep in the long raftered hall; such is the hospitality of the thriving islands of the Inmost Sea.'

[Hunted, WoE]

Related entries: Inns

Seawall of Nepp

Also known as: Nepp, Seawall of

Building the deep-founded seawall of Nepp is reckoned among Ged's famous deeds; no details are known

Sources: The Rowan Tree, FS

Shops

Shops are described in larger towns and cities across the Archipelago. Thwil has a shop selling writing materials and jewelry, while shops in Hort Town sell a huge range of hardware, clothes and fabrics. In Gont Port, shop have shutters; the shop in Thwil has strings of red red clay beads ornamenting its doorway; in Havnor City, they're described as small and dark; in Hort Town, they're little more than booths piled high with wares. Even in major Archipelagan cities, goods are also commonly sold at market

Sources: The Masters of Roke, FS; Hort Town, FS; Finding Words, T; Dolphin, OW

Small House

Also known as: House of the One Priestess

House in which the One Priestess lives after dedication, in the Place of the Tombs on Atuan. It has a windowless sleeping cell, hallway, an inner walled courtyard with a cistern, a porch where the One Priestess's eunuch sleeps, and a small closet with a concealed spyhole onto the Labyrinth, near the iron door

Sources: The Eaten One, ToA; Dreams and Tales, ToA; Light under the Hill, ToA

'It was in a house that had been locked for years, unlocked only that day. The room was higher than it was long, and had no windows. There was a dead smell in it, still and stale.'

[The Eaten One, ToA]

Taverns

Also known as: Pothouses

Kept by a taverner, taverns or pothouses serve beer and wine; unlike inns, they usually don't provide food or accommodation. Probably ubiquitous throughout the Archipelago, they're mentioned in Havnor City and various villages on Semel, Havnor and elsewhere

Sources: The Finder, TfE; On the High Marsh, TfE; Dolphin, OW

Temple of the God-Brothers

Also known as: God-Brothers, Temple of the, Temple of the Twin Gods

Temple to the Twin Gods on Atuan, set on a little knoll in the Place of the Tombs. A windowless cube of white plastered stone, with a newly gilted roof and a low porch, it is centuries older than the Temple of the Godking, but much more recent than the Hall of the Throne. Its little vaulted treasury has a large concealed spyhole onto the Painted Room of the Labyrinth

Sources: The Wall around the Place, ToA; The Man Trap, ToA

'Even from away off on the eastern plains, looking up one might see the gold roof of the Temple of the Twin Gods wink and glitter beneath the mountains like a speck of mica in a shelf of rock.'

[The Wall around the Place, ToA]

Temple of the Godking

Also known as: Godking, Temple of the

Temple to the Godking on Atuan. The newest and showiest temple in the Place of the Tombs, it has a high portico and thick white columns of solid cedar logs with carved & painted capitals. At the rear are accommodations for the High Priestess serving the Godking.

There is also a minor temple to the Godking in Ossawa

Sources: The Wall around the Place, ToA; Dreams and Tales, ToA; The Man Trap, ToA

'The columns with their carved capitals stood white with hoar-frost in the starlight, like pillars of bone.'

[The Man Trap, ToA]

Temple of the Twin Gods

See Temple of the God-Brothers

Terrenon, Court of the

See Court of the Terrenon

Throne room

Also known as: Great Hall of Gemal Sea-born

Formerly the great hall of Gemal Sea-born; the oldest part of the New Palace of Havnor City in which the King's Council meets. A long, plainly-decorated room with a high-beamed ceiling and high, narrow windows, furnished with cushioned benches for the councillors. On a dias at the end of the hall facing the councillors' benches stands the throne, Morred's High Seat; behind the dias is a curtained doorway. Described in the Havnorian Lay: 'A hundred warriors, a hundred women/sat in the great hall of Gemal Sea-Born/at the king's table'^a

Sources: Bettering, T; The Dragon Council, OW (a)

'But the throne room, once the beamed ceiling was rebuilt, the stone walls replastered, the narrow, high-set windows reglazed, he left in its old starkness. … Some of the rich people who came to admire their expensive palace complained about the throne room and the throne. "It looks like a barn," they said, and, "Is it Morred's High Seat or an old farmer's chair?"'

[The Dragon Council, OW]

Tomb Wall

Ancient mortarless stone wall behind the Hall of the Throne and encircling the summit of the Hill of the Tombs; it completely surrounds the Tombs of Atuan. Originally three times the height of a person, by the time of The Tombs of Atuan it has partly fallen down in several places

Sources: The Wall around the Place, ToA; The Prisoners, ToA

'The rocks it was built of were massive; the least of them would outweigh a man, and the largest were big as wagons. Though unshapen they were carefully fitted and interlocked. Yet in places the height of the wall had slipped down and the rocks lay in a shapeless heap.'

[The Prisoners, ToA]

Tower of Alabaster

Tower of the New Palace in Havnor City, built by Heru and Maharion. Perhaps another name for either the Tower of the Kings or the Tower of the Queen, perhaps a third distinct tower

Sources: The Dragon Council, OW

Tower of Erreth-Akbe

See Tower of the Kings

Tower of the Kings

Also known as: Tower of the Sword, Tower of Erreth-Akbe, Sword Tower

Highest tower of the New Palace of Havnor City on Havnor, with the Sword of Erreth-Akbe set in its pinnacle; built by Heru and Maharion. The tower houses sand clocks and the Pendulum of Ath; from an encircling balcony near its summit, trumpeters play, telling the hours

Sources: Palaces, OW; The Dragon Council, OW

Tower of the Queen

Also known as: Queen Heru's Tower, Queen's Tower

Tower of the New Palace in Havnor City, near the Tower of the Kings; built by Heru and Maharion

Sources: The Dragon Council, OW

Tower of the Sword

See Tower of the Kings

Treasury of the Tombs

Also known as: Great Treasury of the Tombs, Great Treasury of the Tombs of Atuan, Treasury of the Tombs of Atuan, Great Treasure of the Tombs (of Atuan)

At the centre of the Labyrinth of Atuan, guarded by a pit, the treasury is a low-roofed, dusty room with rough-hewn stone walls containing six great stone chests of treasure, including half the Ring of Erreth-Akbe; Ged calls it 'a deathly place'^a. Opened by a silver key with a dragon-shaped haft (one of the ring of keys)

Sources: The Great Treasure, ToA; The Ring of Erreth-Akbe, ToA (a)

'In the Great Treasury of the Tombs of Atuan, time did not pass. No light; no life; no least stir of spider in the dust or worm in the cold earth. Rock, and dark, and time not passing.'

[The Ring of Erreth-Akbe, ToA]

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