Books In English "City Of Illusions" Ursula K. Le Guin | Page 29

they assume he would lie to them before they even spoke to him?
"Did you think I was a Shing?" he asked.
The face of the man on his right, lean, long-haired, bearded, sprang
suddenly into the lamplight, the Lips drawn back, and his open hand struck
Falk across the mouth, jolting his head back and blinding him a moment
with the shock. His ears rang; he tasted blood. There was a second blow
and a third. The man kept hissing many times over. "You do not say that
name, don't say it, you do not say it, you don't say it—"
Falk struggled helplessly to defend himself, to get free. The man on
his left spoke sharply. Then there was silence for some while.
"I meant no harm coming here," Falk said at last, as steadily as he
could through his anger, pain and fear.
"All right," said the one on the left, Argerd, "go on and tell your little
story. What did you mean in coming here?"
"To ask for a night's shelter. And ask if there's any trail going west."
"Why are you going west?"
" Why do you ask? I told you in mindspeech, where there's no lying.
You know my mind."
"You have a strange mind," Argerd said in his weak voice. "And
strange eyes. Nobody comes here for a night's shelter or to ask the way or
for anything else. Nobody comes here. When the servants of the Others
come here, we kill them. We kill toolmen, and the speaking beasts, and
Wanderers and pigs and vermin. We don't obey the law that says it's wrong
to take life—do we, Drehnem?"
The bearded one grinned, showing brownish teeth.
"We are men," Argerd said. "Men, free men, killers. What are you,
with your half-mind and your owl's eyes, and why shouldn't we kill you?
Are you a man?"
In the brief span of his memory, Falk had not met directly with cruelty
or hate. The few people he had known had been, if not fearless, not ruled
by fear; they had been generous and familiar. Between these two men he
knew he was defenseless as a child, and the knowledge both bewildered
and enraged him.
He sought some defense or evasion and found none. All he could do
~ 27 ~