Books In English "City Of Illusions" Ursula K. Le Guin | Page 72

letting him take her hand.
"Why didn't you tell me—"
"What good?"
He had no answer to that. She was quiet again, but he felt her
repressed, feverish anxiety. She grew worse in the night and by morning
was very ill. She could not eat, and though tormented by thirst could not
stomach the rabbit-blood which was all he could offer her to drink. He
made her as comfortable as he could and then taking their empty flasks set
off to find water.
Mile after mile of wiry, flower-speckled grass and clumped scrub
stretched off, slightly rolling, to the bright hazy edge of the sky. The sun
shone very warm; desert larks went up singing from the earth. Falk went at
a fast steady pace, confident at first, then dogged, quartering out a long
sweep north and east of their camp. Last week's rains had already soaked
deep into this soil, and there were no streams. There was no water. He
must go on and seek west of the camp. Circling back from the east he was
looking out anxiously for the camp when, from a long low rise, he saw
something miles off to westward, a smudge, a dark blur that might be
trees. A moment later he spotted the nearer smoke of the campfire, and set
off towards it at a jogging run, though he was tired, and the low sun
hammered its light in his eyes, and his mouth was dry as chalk.
Estrel had kept the fire smoldering to guide him back. She lay by it in
her worn-out sleepingbag. She did not lift her head when he came to her.
"There are trees not too far to the west of here; there may be water. I
went the wrong way this morning," he said, getting their things together
and slipping on his pack. He had to help Estrel get to her feet; he took her
arm and they set off. Bent, with a blind look on her face, she struggled
along beside him for a mile and then for another mile. They came up one
of the long swells of land. "There!" Falk said; "there—see it? It's trees, all
right—there must be water there."
But Estrel had dropped to her knees, then lain down on her side in the
grass, doubled up on her pain, her eyes shut. She could not walk farther.
"It's two or three miles at most, I think. I'll make a smudge-fire here,
and you can rest; I'll go fill the flasks and come back—I'm sure there's
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