Books In English "City Of Illusions" Ursula K. Le Guin | Page 22

afternoon. The stream down there runs west. To the Inland River, finally."
Falk straightened up and looked westward, but the low hills rose up
soon and the low sky closed down, leaving no distant view.
"Metock," he said, I've been thinking there's no point in my going on
to Ransifel. I may as well be on my way. There seemed to be a trail
leading west along the big stream we crossed this afternoon. I'll go back
and follow it."
Metock glanced up; he did not mindspeak, but his thought was plain
enough: Are you thinking of running back home?
Falk did use mindspeech for his reply: "No, damn it, I'm not!"
"I'm sorry," the Elder Brother said aloud, in his grim, scrupulous way.
He had not tried to hide the fact that he was glad to see Falk go. To
Metock nothing mattered much but the safety of the House; any stranger
was a threat, even the stranger he had known for five years, his
hunting-companion and his sister's lover. But he went on, "They'll make
you welcome at Ransifel. Why not start from there?"
"Why not from here?"
"Your, choice." Metock worked a last rock into place, and Falk began
to build up the fire. "If that was a trail we crossed, I don't know where it
comes from or goes. Early tomorrow we'll cross a real path, the old Hirand
Road. Hirand House was a long way west, a week on foot at least;
nobody's gone there for sixty or seventy years. I don't know why. But the
trail was still plain last time I came this way. The other might be an animal
track, and lead you straying or leave you in a swamp."
"All right, I'll try the Hirand Road."
There was a pause, then Metock asked, "Why are you going west?"
"Because Es Toch is in the west."
The name seldom spoken sounded flat and strange out here under the
sky. Thurro coming up with an armload of wood glanced around uneasily.
Metock asked nothing more.
That night on the hillside by the campfire was Falk's last with those
who were to him his brothers, his own people. Next morning they were on
the trail again a little after sunrise, and long before noon they came to a
wide, overgrown trace leading to the left off the path to Ransifel. There
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