Books In English "City Of Illusions" Ursula K. Le Guin | Page 81

WITH HIS lone memory of a lone peak to embody the word
"mountain," Falk had imagined that as soon as they reached the mountains
they would have reached Es Toch; he had not realized they would have to
clamber over the roof-tree of a continent. Range behind range the
mountains rose; day after day the two crept upward into the world of the
heights, and still their goal lay farther up and farther on to the southwest.
Among the forests and torrents and the cloud-conversant slopes of snow
and granite there was every now and then a little camp or village along the
way. Often they could not avoid these as there was but one path to take.
They rode past on their mules, the Prince's princely gift at their going, and
were not hindered. Estrel said that the mountain people, living here on the
doorstep of the Shing, were a wary lot who would neither molest nor
welcome a stranger, and were best left alone.
Camping was a cold business, in April in the mountains, and the once
they stopped at a village was a welcome relief. It was a tiny place, four
wooden houses by a noisy stream in a canyon shadowed by great
storm-wreathed peaks; but it had a name, Besdio, and Estrel had stayed
there once years ago, she told him, when she had been a girl. The people of
Besdio, a couple of whom were light-skinned and tawny-haired like Estrel
herself, spoke with her briefly. They talked in the language which the
Wanderers used; Falk had always spoken Galaktika with Estrel and had
not learned this Western tongue. Estrel explained, pointing east and west;
the mountain people nodded coolly, studying Estrel carefully, glancing at
Falk only out of the corner of their eyes. They asked few questions, and
gave food and a night's shelter ungrudgingly but with a cool, incurious
manner that made Falk vaguely uneasy.
The cowshed where they were to sleep was warm, however, with the
live heat of the cattle and goats and poultry crowded there in sighing,
odorous, peaceable companionship. While Estrel talked a little longer with
their hosts in the main hut, Falk betook himself to the cowshed and made
himself at home. In the hayloft above the stalls he made a luxurious double
bed of hay and spread their bedrolls on it. When Estrel came he was
already half asleep, but he roused himself enough to remark, "I'm glad you
came…I smell something kept hidden here, but I don't know what."
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