The Ladder in the Sky Read Online Free

search of the conjurer again.
    But she meant what she said. It couldn’t be doubted.
    Kazan frowned at himself in the mirror. Was that devil real? Was it a devil? Had it all been a superbly clever trick by the man in black to part Bryda from her money? He would have been well paid, that was sure.
    Because it was the likeliest explanation, and because he felt no different from the way he remembered feeling before, Kazan had accepted it as the truth and tried not to question it further. Seeing the monsters in the lake yesterday, though, had put him vividly in mind of the thing in the blue-lit circle, and he wasn’t certain any longer.
    Abruptly the dangerous nature of the game he was playing hit him, full force. He stood for a moment, calming himself, but seeing the way his eyes widened and the tendons stood out on his neck.
    That couldn’t be faced alone. He had to go somewhere. He had to get out, maybe. He had to go back to the Dyasthala and lose himself. At the back of his mind was the faint, unformulated idea that perhaps when it came to claim its year and a day of service the devil would fail to find him.
    In the grip of something like panic, he slammed out of the room and went clattering down the stairs.
    Halfway, he stopped dead, grasping the baluster. He had believed himself alone in the house; even Hego, who was his constant guard by night and day, would be outside the only door in preference to staying under the same roof as a man possessed of a devil.
    But there, sitting comfortably on the padded plinth of one of the square pillars, was Yarco. He had a jug of wine beside him, and he was turning the pages of a large book on his lap.
    He glanced up, nodded to Kazan, and went back to his reading.
    That was a piece of bad luck, Kazan thought. Yet provided Yarco was on his own, not irremediable. He slowlydescended the rest of the stairs, as though he had left his room out of mere restlessness, and began to wander about, eying the pictures, the racked books and recording crystals, the slow changing lines of words on the news machine.
    Passing the window set in the front wall, he caught a glimpse of Hego standing stolidly before the door. Some small boys were going by in a group; they seemed to be shouting at him, because he turned thunder-faced and shook his fist. But no sound from outside ever entered the house if the door was closed.
    He wandered on. Rounding the pillar at whose base Yarco sat, he looked down at the book he was reading. Reading. Well, the guy seemed contented enough, and maybe when a man got to Yarco’s state, podgily middle-aged, and the fire in his belly started to die down, it was a way of passing the time. He craned his neck. There was a picture at the top of the page on the left, and he couldn’t quite get the angle right for the depth effect from where he was standing.
    “Can you read, Kazan?” Yarco said.
    Kazan started. He hadn’t noticed Yarco turn his head. Now he’d got his attention, and it would take a while to lose it again. Cursing his thoughtlessness, he said, “Why—a bit. I can read street names, and names on stores, and like that.”
    “Not much call for more than that, I guess,” Yarco nodded. “You write your name?”
    Uncomfortable, Kazan shook his head.
    “You should learn,” Yarco said. He put his book aside and helped himself to wine from the jug. “You can’t go back into the Dyasthala the way you are now, and you won’t get by outside without it. When do you work your miracle, by the way?”
    “Miracle?” Kazan said slowly, studying Yarco’s. bland face.
    “Yes. You know!” Yarco waved a negligent hand. “Your vanishing act.”
    There was a moment of frozen silence. “I don’t know what you mean,” Kazan said at last.
    “You know only too well,” Yarco corrected him. He got up and replaced his book in the rack on the far wall. Swinging back towards Kazan, he could be seen to be smiling.
    “Oh, don’t worry,” he said. “I’m not going to