Gifts (Annals of the Western Shore)
Ursula K. Le Guin
Language: English
Pages: 304
ISBN: 0152051244
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
In this beautifully crafted story, Ursula K. Le Guin writes of the proud cruelty of power, of how hard it is to grow up, and of how much harder still it is to find, in the world's darkness, gifts of light.
Includes a reader's guide and a sample chapter from the companion title Voices.
Caspro son from a Caspro serf, or so we three took it. "He is," my father said, and did not name or introduce or even look at me. "Now that our lands border," said Ogge, "I've had it in mind to come invite you and your lady to visit us at Drummant. If I rode by your house in a day or two, you'd be there?" "I will," Canoc said. "You are welcome to come." "Good, good. I'll be by." Ogge raised his hand in a careless, genial salute, wheeled his mare standing, and led his little troop off at a
father. If I could not learn to use my power, I could learn how not to use it. 1 He was lost when he came to us, and I fear the silver spoons he stole from us didn't save him when he ran away and went up into the high domains. Yet in the end the lost man, the runaway man was our guide. Gry called him the runaway man. When he first came, she was sure he’d done some terrible thing, a murder or a betrayal, and was escaping vengeance. What else would bring a Lowlander here, among us?
string on a fiddle—you know? If you just touch it, it calls out?" I must have looked blank. She shook her head. "It's hard to talk about!" "But you know you're doing it, when you do it." "Oh yes. Even before I could call, sometimes I could feel the string. Only it wasn't stretched enough. It wasn't tuned." I sat hunched up, despairing. I tried to say something about the adder. No words would come. Gry said, "What was it like when you killed the adder?" So simply, she gave me my release from
confusing everyone, so that the boar, though brought to bay, had killed two dogs and escaped, a horse had broken its leg in the chase, then as the boar had got into thickets, the hunt had to dismount and go in afoot, and another dog had been disemboweled, and finally, as Canoc put it, very low-voiced, to me and Parn, "they all stuck and stabbed at the poor brute but none of them dared get close to it. It took half an hour to kill it." We sat in silence, hearing Ogge and his son shouting at each
the little girl. That was so strange. I don't think I ever told you about it, did I? Denno had gone downstairs to try to stop her sons from quarreling. Poor Daredan was so worn out, I told her to go sleep a while, I'd stay with Vardan. The poor little thing was asleep, but she always seemed to be just about to wake up, with the twitches and spasms that ran through her. So I put out the light and was drowsing along beside her, and after a while I thought I heard somebody whispering or chanting. A