The Infinity Concerto Read Online Free PDF

to."

    "You want to. You come here, and you want to go back. Don't you know how?"

    He shook his head.

    "Then you're dead, too. You're stuck here. Well, at least you have company. But you must leave this house. Nobody stays here come night."

    By this time he was trembling, and angry at himself for being afraid. It was all made worse by the way the woman stared at him, saying nothing. "Well," she said finally. "You'll learn soon enough. You'll return to this house tomorrow morning."

    "It's only morning now," Michael said.

    "And you'll need the rest of the day to straighten out your situation. Come with me."

    She walked around the staircase and opened a large door at the front of the house. He followed her shimmying form down a long flight of stone steps to a rocky field, then across a narrow path to a dirt road which wound its way through more low, treeless hills.

    "There's a town - a human town - about three miles up this road, beyond the field and over a bridge. Go there quickly. Don't loiter. There are those who have no great love for humans. There's a very ramshackle hotel in town, bed and board; you'll have to work for your keep. They stick together in the town. They have to. Go there, tell them Lamia wants you put up. Tell them you'll work." She stared at the book bulging his jacket pocket. "Are you a student?" she asked.

    "I guess so," he said.

    "Hide the book. Full morning tomorrow, come back and we'll talk."

    She turned without waiting for any reaction and labored up the steps to the door, shutting it behind her. Michael looked this way and that, trying to squeeze meaning out of the barren hills, ruined old house and rocky front yard.

    It was all quite real. He wasn't dreaming.

    Chapter Three

    Michael had not reckoned with feeling scared, being hungry, or facing the acid realization that he had no idea what to do. He had nothing to fall back on, no reasonable guide; he had only Lamia's words. Lamia herself, whatever she had to say, was hardly reassuring. Her brusqueness and her almost certain insanity made Michael all the more desperate to find a way home. He decided to try the gate again, to climb over it if need be; perhaps the river and the countryside beyond the gate were illusory. Perhaps he could just jump and find himself back in the alley.

    Back with the figure in the flounced dress and broad hat.

    That thought stopped him halfway across the field, behind the ruined mansion. Fists clenched, he turned and trudged back between the dead vines and over the rocks and clods. He was on the dirt road again, following Lamia's directions, when he heard hooves pounding. A group of five horses and riders galloped along about half a mile behind him, raising a small plume of dust. He hid behind a boulder and watched.

    The riders approached the narrow path leading to the house and slowed to confer with each other. Michael had never seen horses or men like them. The horses were large and lean, so tightly muscled they looked as if they had been flayed. They were a uniform mottled gray, all but one, a dazzling golden palomino.

    The men were tall and thin, with a spectral quality most strikingly evident in their faces. All of them had reddish blond hair, long narrow jaws without beards and square large eyes beneath formidable brows. Their clothing was pearly gray, differing from the horses' coloration only in the way it diffracted die early morning sunlight.

    Done conferring, they took the path to the house and dismounted near the steps. The horses kicked at clods of dirt as their masters entered the house without knocking.

    Michael squinted from his awkward advantage. He decided it would be best for him to leave the area and get to the village as quickly as possible.

    The walk took about forty-five minutes. All the way, he kept glancing over his shoulder to make sure the riders weren't coming up behind him.

    His wristwatch wasn't working, he noticed; the sweep-second hand was motionless. The dial read