Books In English "City Of Illusions" Ursula K. Le Guin | Page 135

unless she wished, and said at last, softly, in the archaic tongue his people
knew only from the ancient books of the Colony, "Are you of the Race of
Man, or of the Enemy?"
She laughed in a forced, gibing way. "Both, Falk. There is no Enemy,
and I work for them. Listen, tell Abundibot your name is Falk. Tell Ken
Kenyek. Tell all the Lords your name is Falk—that'll give them something
to worry about! Falk—"
"Enough."
His voice was as soft as before, but he had spoken with his full
authority: she stopped with her mouth open, gaping. When she spoke again
it was only to repeat that name she called him by, in a voice gone shaky
and almost supplicating. She was pitiful, but he made no reply. She was in
a temporary or permanent psychotic state, and he felt himself too
vulnerable and too unsure, in these circumstances, to allow her further
communication. He felt pretty shaky himself, and moving away from her
he in-drew, becoming only secondarily aware of her presence and voice.
He needed to collect himself; there was something very strange the matter
with him, not drugs, at least no drug he knew, but a profound displacement
and imbalance, worse than any of the induced insanities of Seventh Level
mental discipline. But he was given little time. The voice behind him rose
in shrill rancor, and then he caught the shift to violence and along with it
the sense of a second presence. He turned very quickly: she had begun to
draw from her bizarre clothing what was obviously a weapon, but was
standing frozen staring not at him but at a tall man in the doorway.
No word was spoken, but the newcomer directed at the woman a
telepathic command of such shattering coercive force that it made
Ramarren wince. The weapon dropped to the floor and the woman, making
a thin keening sound, ran stooped from the room, trying to escape the
destroying insistence of that mental order. Her blurred shadow wavered a
moment in the wall, vanished.
The tall man turned his white-rimmed eyes to Ramarren and bespoke
him with normal power: "Who are you?"
Ramarren answered in kind, "Agad Ramarren," but no more, nor did
he bow. Things had gone even more wrong than he had first imagined.
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