The listener is introduced to Ged, the greatest sorcerer in all Earthsea, known also as Sparrowhawk. When his vanity prompts him to summon the fair lady of the Deed of Enlad, he unleashes a shapeless mass of darkness--the shadow.
When Sparrowhawk, a young student at the School for Wizards, becomes overanxious and tries his dangerous powers too soon, he unleashes a terrible evil throughout the land.
