City of Illusions

The slide and flicker of the bright beads blurred in Falk's eyes. He held to the edge of the great patterning-frame and whispered, "I ca

"This is the game you play, Opalstone, whether you can read it or not. Good, very good. My dogs have barked at a beggar tonight and he proves a prince of starlight. Opalstone, when I come asking water from your wells and shelter within your walls, will you let me in? It will be a colder night than this——And a long time from now! You come from very, very long ago. I am old but you are much older; you should have died a century ago. Will you remember a century from now that in the desert you met a King? Go on, go on, I told you you are free to move here. There are people to serve you if you need them."

Falk found his way across the long room to a curtained portal. Outside it in an anteroom a boy waited; he summoned others. Without surprise or servility, deferent only in that they waited for Falk to speak first, they provided him a bath, a change of clothing, supper, and a clean bed in a quiet room.

Thirteen days in all he lived in the Great House of the Enclave of Kansas, while the last light snow and the scattered rains of spring drove across the desert lands beyond the Prince's gardens. Estrel, recovering, was kept in one of the many lesser houses that clustered behind the great one. He was free to be with her when he chose…free to do anything he chose. The Prince ruled his domain absolutely, but in no way was his rule enforced: rather it was accepted as an honor; his people chose to serve him, perhaps because they found, in thus affirming the i

This curious reality, this singular validity of the Prince's domain, so fascinated and absorbed him that for days he scarcely thought of the world outside, that scattered, violent, incoherent world he had been traveling through so long. But talking on the thirteenth day with Estrel and having spoken of going, he began to wonder at the relation of the Enclave with all the rest, and said, "I thought the Shing suffered no lordship among men. Why should they let him guard his boundaries here, calling himself Prince and King?"

"Why should they not let him rave? This Enclave of Kansas is a great territory, but barren and without people. Why should the Lords of Es Toch interfere with him? I suppose to them he is like a silly child, boasting and babbling.

"Is he that to you?"

"Well—did you see when the ship came over, yesterday?"

"Yes, I saw."

An aircar—the first Falk had ever seen, though he had recognized its throbbing drone—had crossed directly over the house, up very high so that it was in sight for some minutes. The people of the Prince's household had run out into the gardens beating pans and clappers, the dogs and children had howled, the Prince on an upper balcony had solemnly fired off a series of deafening firecrackers, until the ship had vanished in the murky west. "They are as foolish as the Basnasska, and the old man is mad."

Though the Prince would not see her, his people had been very kind to her; the undertone of bitterness in her soft voice surprised Falk. "The Basnasska have forgotten the old way of man," he said; "these people maybe remember it too well." He laughed. "Anyway, the ship did go on over."

"Not because they scared it away with firecrackers, Falk," she said seriously, as if trying to warn him of something.

He looked at her a moment. She evidently saw nothing of the lunatic, poetic dignity of those firecrackers, which e

The Prince of Kansas was in his throne-room, reading. The disk that covered the east wall of the room by day shone cool mottled silver, a domestic moon; only at night did it glow with soft solar warmth and light. The throne, of polished petrified wood from the southern deserts, stood in front of it. Only on the first night had Falk seen the Prince seated on the throne. He sat now in one of the chairs near the patterning-frame, and at his back the twenty-foot-high windows looking to the west were uncurtained. There the far, dark mountains stood, tipped with ice.

The Prince raised his swordblade face and heard what Falk had to say. Instead of answering he touched the book he had been reading, not one of the beautiful decorated projector-scrolls of his extraordinary library but a little handwritten book of bound paper. "Do you know this Canon?"

Falk looked where he pointed and saw the verse,

"I know it, Prince. I set out on this journey of mine with it in my pack. But I ca

"Those are the symbols it was first written in, five or six thousand years ago: the tongue of the Yellow Emperor—my ancestor. You lost yours along the way? Take this one, then. But you'll lose it too, I expect; in following the Way the way is lost. O desolation! Why do you always speak the truth, Opalstone?"

"I'm not sure." In fact, though Falk had gradually determined that he would not lie no matter whom he spoke to or how chancy the truth might seem, he did not know why he had come to this decision. "To—to use the enemy's weapon is to play the enemy's game…"

"Oh, they won their game long ago.—So you're off? Go on, then; no doubt it's time. But I shall keep your companion here a while."

"I told her I would help her find her people, Prince."

"Her people?" The hard, shadowy face turned to him. "What do you take her for?"

"She is a Wanderer."

"And I am a green walnut, and you a fish, and those mountains are made of roasted sheepshit! Have it your way. Speak the truth and hear the truth. Gather the fruits of my flowery orchards as you walk westward, Opalstone, and drink the milk of my thousand wells in the shade of giant ferntrees. Do I not rule a pleasant kingdom? Mirages and dust straight west to the dark. Is it lust or loyalty that makes you hold to her?"

"We have come a long way together."

"Mistrust her!"

"She has given me help, and hope; we are companions. There is trust between us—how can I break it?"

"Oh fool, oh desolation!" said the Prince of Kansas. "Ill give you ten women to accompany you to the Place of the Lie, with lutes and flutes and tambourines and contraceptive pills. I'll give you five good friends armed with firecrackers. I'll give you a dog—in truth I will, a living extinct dog, to be your true companion. Do you know why dogs died out? Because they were loyal, because they were trusting. Go alone, man!"

"I ca

"Go as you please. The game here's done." The Prince rose, went to the throne beneath the moon-circle, and seated himself. He never turned his head when Falk tried to say farewell.