Books In English "City Of Illusions" Ursula K. Le Guin | Page 124

useless to them, but harmless?
No. They would not. That was clear, and only cowardice made him
turn to the notion. There was no hope there.
Could he escape?
Maybe. The seeming emptiness of this great building might be a
sham, or a trap, or like so much else here, an illusion. He felt and guessed
that he was constantly spied upon, aurally or visually, by hidden presences
or devices. All doors were guarded by toolmen or electronic monitors. But
if he did escape f rom Es Toch, what then?
Could he make his way back across the mountains, across the plains,
through the forest, and come at last to the Clearing, where Parth…No! He
stopped himself in anger. He could not go back. This far he had come
following his way, and he must follow on to the end: through death if it
must be, to rebirth—the rebirth of a stranger, of an alien soul.
But there was no one here to tell that stranger and alien the truth.
There was no one here that Falk could trust, except himself, and therefore
not only must Falk die, but his dying must serve the will of the Enemy.
That was what he could not bear; that was unendurable. He paced up and
down the still, greenish dusk of his room. Blurred inaudible lightning
flashed across the ceiling. He would not serve the Liars; he would not tell
them what they wanted to know. It was not Werel he cared for—for all he
knew, his guesses were all astray and Werel itself was a lie, Orry a more
elaborate Estrel; there was no telling. But he loved Earth, though he was
alien upon it. And Earth to him meant the house in the Forest, the sunlight
on the Clearing, Parth. These he would not betray. He must believe that
there was a way to keep himself, against all force and trickery, from
betraying them.
Again and again he tried to imagine some way in which he as Falk
could leave a message for himself as Ramarren: a problem in itself so
grotesque it beggared his imagination, and beyond that, insoluble. If the
Shing did not watch him write such a message, certainly they would find it
when it was written. He had thought at first to use Orry as the go-between,
ordering him to tell Ramarren, "Do not answer the Shing's questions," but
he had not been able to trust Orry to obey, or to keep the order secret. The
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