Books In English "City Of Illusions" Ursula K. Le Guin | Page 18

I do not like to give up that notion. But only you can seek your own truth;
and if it seems to you that your way ends here, then that, perhaps, is the
truth."
"If I go," Falk said abruptly, "will you let Parth go with me?"
"No, my son."
A child was singing down in the garden—Garra's four-year-old,
turning inept somersaults on the path and singing shrill, sweet nonsense.
High up, in the long wavering V of the great migrations, skein after skein
of wild geese went over southward.
"I was to go with Metock and Thurro to fetch home Thurro's bride,"
Falk said. "We planned to go soon, before the weather changes. If I go, I'l1
go on from Ransifel House."
"In winter?"
"There are Houses west of Ransifel, no doubt, where I can ask shelter
if I need it."
He did not say and Zove did not ask why west was the direction he
would go.
"There may be; I don't know. I don't know if they would give shelter
to strangers as we do. If you go you will be alone, and must be alone.
Outside this House there is no safe place for you on Earth."
He spoke, as always, absolutely truthfully…and paid the cost of truth
in self-control and pain. Falk said with quick reassurance, "I know that,
Master. It's not safety I'd regret—"
"I will tell you what I believe about you. I think you came from a lost
world; I think you were not born on Earth. I think you came here, the first
Alien to return in a thousand years or more, bringing us a message or a
sign. The Shing stopped your mouth, and turned you loose in the forests so
that none might say they had killed you. You came to us. If you go I will
grieve and fear for you, knowing how alone you go. But I will hope for
you, and for ourselves! If you had words to speak to men, you'll remember
them, in the end. There must be a hope, a sign: we cannot go on like this
forever."
"Perhaps my race was never a friend of mankind," Falk said, looking
at Zove with his yellow eyes. "Who knows what I came here to do?"
~ 16 ~