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