of astonishment was dawning.
Because he knew. He did know after all. And he didn’t see how it was possible.
IV
Night lay over the fortress and the lake. The sky was as clear as crystal, and every now and again Kazan found himself glancing up at it, noting that the stars were organized in groups, noting that they cycled slowly, diagonally towards the horizon, so that there were now different stars behind the fortress from those that had been showing when the sun set.
He had never seen a night like this. He had never looked at the stars except from beneath the constant haze of the city. Up on the hill, around the homes of the haughty, the sky might be as clear as it was here. But not over the Dyasthala, from which the fumes of a thousand coarse fires and the reek of decaying rubbish oozed forever upward, a miasma fit to foul even the stars.
He had not yet made up his mind whether he liked the sky to be so naked over the world. But it was a new thing, and very interesting.
Out there in the louring bulk of the fortress a few lights gleamed; one in particular, directly facing them, was the window of Prince Luth’s apartment. Almost anything might be going on there. It was too far to hear, and too dark to see.
But the night was not silent by any means. Something fearful was hunting in the lake; you could track it by the succession of splashes and howls that marked its victims’ deaths. And to the right and left of the fortress other beasts, perhaps mating, frequently uttered a rasping hoot that rose to an ear-splitting whistle before its end.
Kazan was aware of a curious detachment from himself, although when he had to act or give orders he did not feel that it was something else in him working through him. Rather, the sensation each time it happened was like being struck by a transparently obvious, but brilliant, notion. He thought now that he ought to be afraid of it, but it was too enjoyable.
He had never had such subtle thoughts about himself before. Now, reclining in comfort, overlooking the lake and waiting for the moment which was sure to come, he was able to recognize that if the problem had been put to him to consider as happening to somebody else, he would have expected to be scared and worried and looking for an escape. Instead, he was full of buoyant confidence. Maybe he’d caught some of Yarco’s fatalism.
Apparently from nowhere, Yarco’s voice came softly to him. The stout man was sitting just beyond arm’s reach, shrouded in one of the light, portable radiation deflectors that concealed all the watchers round the lake from the suspicious fortress guards.
“How do you feel, Kazan?”
“Confused,” Kazan said. “But otherwise well.”
“I’ve noticed,” Yarco said, and after a moment’s pause went on. “You’re enjoying yourself. You’ve tasted power for the first time. Don’t get the habit.”
Kazan turned the idea over. Yarco was probably right. Since the moment when the stout man had shown his exact understanding of what passed in Kazan’s mind, Kazan had had the healthiest respect for him. Almost, he had begun to like him. After all, to have been pledged before birth to the whims of the royal family was in its way a fate like being born into the Dyasthala, with so little hope of ever climbing out.
“You puzzle me,” Yarco said. “I know quite well that you have not the slightest idea of what you’re doing, that Prince Luth is nothing to you, nor is Lady Bryda, that your world yesterday was the Dyasthala and today still is. And yet, something moves you. Like an invisible hand. Have you ever believed in devils, Kazan?”
There was a note of mockery in the voice. It wasn’t quite sincere, as though he were pretending to laugh at what he was speaking of for fear that he might otherwise scream. Kazan said shortly, “All I’ve ever believed in is hunger. And cold. And disease. And the inevitability of death.”
“Have you added to the list lately?” Yarco pressed him.
“I