Kill the Dead by Tanith Lee (beach read book txt) 📕

they were usually misguidedand mostly led to mishap. Their phenomena had also commenced with him inchildhood. The perverse directives the brain was sometimes capable of—to dropthe tray loaded with priceless glass, to leap the too-wide gap between a pairof speeding wagons, to spit in the face of the landowner’s steward—suchcontrary notions, normally suppressed by the average person, had always provedirresistible to Myal. They were not caused by reckless bravery, either, forMyal was not brave, but merely by the same chemistry that had forced him, sounwisely, to be conceived.

Thecurrent impulse was driving him across the road, toward the iron gate, into theumber yard. That achieved, he sat, trembling slightly, on the edge of the stonewell. He swung the instrument forward, and began to sing Ciddey (or was itCilny?) a love song. His voice was an unpowerful but attractive tenor. In thesilence it seemed very loud. The strings popped under his fingers, and thenotes struck the walls like uncanny sideways rain.

Whenthe shutter slapped open overhead, Myal’s heart practically stopped.

Heglanced up, keeping the song going. A pallid bolt of light hung in the ivy, theshape of a single moth’s wing.

Thegirl leaned through the light. It was the live one—probably. Her braided hairwas like moonshine.

Myalgasped and left off singing. He was half in love with her, and frozen withfear.

“Whatis it?” said the girl. She stared at the instrument. Slender little hands likefox paws gripped the sill. “What do you want?”

“Iwant,” Myal swallowed and lost his head completely. “I want to warn you.”

“Don’ttrouble. I know the village. They’ll behave themselves. They still respect thename of Soban.”

“Idon’t mean that. I mean the man called Dro.” He heard her catch her breath. Shewas lovely. He wished he was a thousand miles away. “He made out he wasleaving, but he’ll be back—if he isn’t back already. He was going to GhysteMortua—I think. But he reckons he’s got dealings to settle with you first. Youand—your sister.”

“Goaway!” cried the girl in the window.

Myaljumped, but felt more familiar ground under his feet at her tone of anger andthreat. “Only trying to be helpful. Sorry I spoke.”

“Wait,”said the girl. She was suddenly, appallingly defenceless. “What do you knowabout him?”

“Onlythat he’ll be back. If you want my advice, not that you do, you’d run for it”

“Wherecould I go?”

“Maybe—withme.”

Hestared up at her, shivering at the romance of it all and wishing he could shuthimself up. To his chagrin and his relief, the girl laughed at him.

“You.Who are you?Besides, what about my dead sister? Where is sheto go? With you, too?”

“Perhaps,”Myal shuddered, “Parl Dro made an error there. Perhaps I don’t believe inghosts.”

Ashriek slit down the night.

Itcame from the topmost room of the tower, on the north side of the house.

Myaland Ciddey were momentarily petrified. The girl broke from her rigor before hedid. Leaving the shutter wide, she turned and ran away into the depths of thehouse.

Myal remained in the yard, glaring wildly betweenthe trees at the one corner of the tower that was visible from this vantage, aconstriction in his throat.

CHAPTER THREE

Thetrees around the house on its north side could have been deliberately plantedto give access to the tower. One in particular rested its boughs almost acrossthe sill of the second-story window. Of course, a lame man might not bereckoned capable of scaling trees.

WhenParl Dro reached the window, he found it latched from within. Easing the lameleg, which itself did not reckon it should be required to scale trees, Droproduced a slender knife, and slid it through the join between the shutters. Ina couple of seconds it had raised the latch, and the two panes of dull glassparted. The room beyond was bare and empty, save for a few skeletal plantsdying in dry soil and cracked pots on the floor. Dro entered it and vacated itas swiftly. The possible significance of the pots—herbal witchery—did notconcern him, nor any longer the witch, judging by the state of them. Dro movedout through the door onto a steep stair. The top room lay straight above him atthe stairhead, closed by a thick wooden door with plates and lock of rustyiron.

Thegirl was in the house, for he had seen her there soon after sunset, going withher lamp from window to window, latching each. The light had ultimately come torest in an upper room, a thin thread behind shutters of wood. It was possiblethat this was a ruse, but he did not judge her so devious as to leave her lampbarely obvious in one place, and creep to another through the pitch-dark house.Besides, she would be hoping he was gone.

Justas he was starting up the tower stair, he heard the poignant unmistakable notesof Myal Lemyal’s wire strings.

Interested,Dro checked, almost pleased. If anything, this was to the good; Myal playingtroubador at one end of the building would distract Ciddey Soban from this one.On the other hand, Myal’s purpose was decidedly oblique, maybe even to himself.It had been straightforward to dupe the musician, yet almost simultaneously, hehad shown himself possessed of both talent and cunning—a talent and cunning heappeared bored with: or even unaware of. Not every man could have tracked ParlDro to his cover on the slope that day, and not every man had ambitionsconnected to Ghyste Mortua. Nor did every minstrel make such music.

Thecurrent theme was trivial but not displeasing. Dro listened to it with aquarter ear as he finished the climb up the rest of the stairs, and picked theiron lock of the door at the top with his knife.

Whenhe got into the room, he forgot the music

Theaura of the manifested dead was intense and total. That pervasion, like an odourof cold stale perfume. That feel of an invisible active centre, which strove todraw off the energies of life, and of the living, into itself. No wonder CiddeySoban was pale and slight. His earliest training had taught him that, evenwhere love caused the deadalive to linger, they sucked the vitality of thequick who harboured them. They could not help it, any more than fire could helpdestroying a stick of wood put into the hearth. It merely happened.