Books In English "City Of Illusions" Ursula K. Le Guin | Page 121

"To live one must agree to die," Falk said, and saw the mask-face wince. "Very well. I agree. I consent to let you kill me. My consent does not really matter, does it?—yet you want it." "We will not kill you." The whisper was louder. "We do not kill. We do not take life. We are restoring you to your true life and being. Only you must forget. That is the price; there is not any choice or doubt: to be Ramarren you must forget Falk. To this you must consent, indeed, but it is all we ask." "Give me one day more," Falk said, and then rose, ending the conversation. He had lost; he was powerless. And yet he had made the mask wince, he had touched, for a moment, the very quick of the lie; and in that moment he had sensed that, had he the wits or strength to reach it, the truth lay very close at hand. Falk left the building with Orry, and when they were in the street he said, "Come with me a minute. I want to speak with you outside those walls." They crossed the bright street to the edge of the cliff and stood side by side there in the cold night-wind of spring, the lights of the bridge shooting on out past them, over the black chasm that dropped sheer away from the street's edge. "When I was Ramarren," Falk said slowly, "had I the right to ask