I MUST BE SICKENING FOR SOMETHING, he thought.
Mort eased himself up the ladder alongside Ysabell. It was shaky, but seemed to be safe. At least the height didn't bother him; everything below was just blackness.
Some of Albert's earlier volumes were very nearly falling apart. He reached out for one at random, feeling the ladder tremble underneath them as he did so, brought it back and opened it somewhere in the middle.
'Move the candle this way,' he said.
'Can you read it?'
'Sort of —'
— “turnered hys hand, butt was sorelie vexed that alle menne at laste comme to nort, viz. Deathe, and vowed hymme to seke Imortalitie yn his pride. 'Thus,' he tolde the younge wizzerds, 'we may take unto ourselfes the mantel of Goddes.' Thee next day, yt being raining, Alberto” —
'It's written in Old,' he said. 'Before they invented spelling. Let's have a look at the latest one.'
It was Albert all right. Mort caught several references to fried bread.
'Let's have a look at what he's doing now,' said Ysabell.
'Do you think we should? It's a bit like spying.'
'So what? Scared?'
'All right.'
He flicked through until he came to the unfilled pages, and then turned back until he found the story of Albert's life, crawling across the page at surprising speed considering it was the middle of the night; most biographies didn't have much to say about sleep, unless the dreams were particularly vivid.
'Hold the candle properly, will you? I don't want to get grease on his life.'
'Why not? He likes grease.'
'Stop giggling, you'll have us both off. Now look at this bit. . . .
— 'He crept through the dusty darkness of the Stack —' Ysabell read – 'his eyes fixed on the tiny glow of candlelight high above. Prying, he thought, poking away at things that shouldn't concern them, the little devils' —
'Mort! He's —'
'Shut up! I'm reading!'
— 'soon put a stop to this. Albert crept silently to the foot of the ladder, spat on his hands, and got ready to push. The master'd never know; he was acting strange these days and it was all that lad's fault, and' —
Mort looked up into Ysabell's horrified eyes.
Then the girl took the book out of Mort's hand, held it at arm's length while her gaze remained fixed woodenly on his, and let it go.
Mort watched her lips move and then realised that he, too, was counting under his breath.
Three, four —
There was a dull thump, a muffled cry, and silence.
'Do you think you've killed him?' said Mort, after a while.
'What, here? Anyway, I didn't notice any better ideas coming from you.'
'No, but – he is an old man, after all.'
'No, he's not,' said Ysabell sharply, starting down the ladder.