Books In English "City Of Illusions" Ursula K. Le Guin | Page 47

or five others in the boat shone fulvent gold, all the same, as if they were
all of one close kin, or one kind. He could not see the faces clearly, only
the red-gold hair, the slender figures bending forward to laugh and beckon.
He could not make sure how many there were. For a second one face was
distinct, a woman's face, watching him across the moving water and the
wind. He had slowed the slider to a hover, and the boat too seemed to rest
motionless on the river.
"Follow us," the man called again, and this time, recognizing the
language, Falk understood. It was the old League tongue, Galaktika. Like
all Foresters, Falk had learned it from tapes and books, for the documents
surviving from the Great Age were recorded in it, and it served as a
common speech among men of different tongues. The Forest dialect was
descended from Galaktika, but had grown far from it over a thousand
years, and by now differed even from House to House. Travelers once had
come to Zove's House from the coast of the Eastern Sea, speaking a dialect
so divergent that they had found it easier to speak Galaktika with their
hosts, and only then had Falk heard it used as a living tongue; otherwise it
had only been the voice of a soundbook, or the murmur of the sleep
teacher in his ear in the dark of a winter morning. Dreamlike and archaic it
sounded now in the clear voice of the steersman. "Follow us, we go to the
city!"
"To what city?"
"Our own," the man called, and laughed.
"The city that welcomes the traveler," another called; and another, in
the tenor that had rung so sweetly in their singing, spoke more softly:
"Those that mean no harm find no harm among us." And a woman called
as if she smiled as she spoke, "Come out of the wilderness, traveler, and
hear our music for a night."
The name they called him meant traveler, or messenger.
"Who are you?" he asked.
Wind blew and the broad river ran. The boat and the airboat hovered
motionless amid the flow of air and water, together and apart as if in an
enchantment.
"We are men."
~ 45 ~