Books In English "City Of Illusions" Ursula K. Le Guin | Page 90

"I was sent to bring you here. You wanted to come here."
He tried to pull himself together. Standing rigid, not moving towards
her, he asked, "Are you a Shing?"
"I am," said the robed man, affably smiling. "I am a Shing. All Shing
are liars. Am I, then, a Shing ly ing to you, in which case of course I am not
a Shing, but a non-Shing, lying? Or is it a lie that all Shing lie? But I am a
Shing, truly; and truly I lie. Terrans and other animals have been known to
tell lies also; lizards change color, bugs mimic sticks and flounders lie by
lying still, looking pebbly or sandy depending on the bottom which
underlies them. Strella, this one is even stupider than the child."
"No, my Lord Kradgy, he is very intelligent," Estrel replied, in her
soft, passive way. She spoke of Falk as a human being speaks of an
animal.
She had walked beside Falk, eaten with him, slept with him. She had
slept in his arms…Falk stood watching her, silent; and she and the tall one
also stood silent, unmoving, as if awaiting a signal from him to go on with
their performance.
He could not feel rancor towards her. He felt nothing towards her. She
had turned to air, to a blur and flicker of light. His feeling was all towards
himself: he was sick, physically sick, with humiliation.
Go alone, Opalstone, said the Prince of Kansas. Go alone, said
Hiardan the Bee-Keeper. Go alone, said the old Listener in the forest. Go
alone, my son, said Zove. How many others would have guided him aright,
helped him on his quest, armed him with knowledge, if he had come
across the prairies alone? How much might he have learned, if he had not
trusted Estrel's guidance and good faith?
Now he knew nothing, except that he had been measurelessly stupid,
and that she had lied. She had lied to him from the start, steadily, from the
moment she told him she was a Wanderer—no, from before that: from the
moment she had first seen him and had pretended not to know who or what
he was. She had known all along, and had been sent to make sure he got to
Es Toch; and to counteract, perhaps, the influence those who hated the
Shing had had and might have upon his mind. But then why, he thought
painfully, standing there in one room gazing at her in another, why had she
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