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

SometimesParl Dro had been paid large sums of money to perform such work as this. Othertimes, he had slunk in like a thief, as he did now, and sharp pebbles hadstruck him across the back when the task was done.

Thephysical aspect of the room was itself depressingly invocational.

Itwas a bedchamber, or had been arranged to be: A stark canopied bed, maidennarrow, with fluted white drapes. A carved chest, in which he had no doubtCilny Soban’s garments lay carefully folded amid bags of herbs. An antiquemirror of polished silver stood on the chest, and two or three old books. Onthe inside of the door he had closed hung some tiny charms on a thread. Some ofthem looked like a baby’s teeth. In a bony chair sat a child’s doll, made ofwood with cannily jointed limbs. It was dressed in faded spectral white, likeeverything else, and had long lank hair of flaxen wool. There was a tapestry onthe wall, a rug on the floor, a table with an ewer and basin, some little combschased with imitation mother-of-pearl, and an open ivory casket with delicatebeads and bangles in it.

Itwas a sad room, and very horrible. It provided the perfect compost from which aghost might ferment itself and establish its false claims on an earthlyexistence.

Inthe darkest comer, something stood off the rug, on the floor. It was a slim,two-foot-high stone jar.

Themoment he looked at the jar, he felt her seep into the room. She had not beenthere when he entered. Cilny had died in the spring, not so long ago. She mightneed a human presence to rouse her. But also he suspected Ciddey had warned herinto hiding. Even now, she was reluctant to evolve, sensing antipathy. A desirefor her company, love, even fear, she could feed on. Dro offered her none ofthese. Yet now, looking at the pot which held her ashes, he began to exert hiswill on her. He began to drag her, willing or not, into the room.

Hisspine and the roots of his hair registered her arrival before his eyes did. Butin less than half a minute, he could see her quite plainly too.

Frailand blonde she was, mostly transparent. No, she was not a very strongdeadalive. She wore the clothing of her death hour, which was quite usual, thelong flimsy nightgown the villagers had described, though for some reason thewreath of flowers was absent. Then, in the way of ghosts, unexpectedly andpiteously, she touched him—by folding her arms shyly about herself. It was themodesty of a very young girl who had never slept with a man, and discoveredherself alone with one in her nightwear. Nor was it contrived: he was fairlysure of that. He said to her gently, “Don’t be afraid, Cilny. Do you know who Iam?”

Hervoice was hardly more than a rustle, dry papers or blown leaves.

“Ciddeytold me of a man, a lame man in black”

“Whatdid she say?”

“Thatyou’d kill me.”

“Cilny,”he said quietly, “how can I kill you? You’re already dead.”

“No,”she cried in her rustling voice. Panic made it stronger, “No—no—” She stared athim. “Ciddey woke me. I was asleep and she woke me.”

“Sheshouldn’t have awoken you. You should have woken in your own time and gone onyour own way, to the place you have to go to.”

“No.I’ll stay here. I want my sister. I want Ciddey.”

Hedid not wish to be rough with her. Sometimes it was possible to comfort, tosmooth the path. The going through could be calm, even some cases blissful,thankful. But this one would plead and whimper at him. He was steeled to thehurt, but to prolong the hurt for her would be no sort of kindness.

Hetook a step towards the pot of ashes, and then the ghost-girl shrieked.

Theshriek had attained a dumbfounding strength. It thrilled through the room,through his ears, through stone. He knew Ciddey would have heard it.

Drolunged towards the jar. To reach it, he had to go right by the ghost, partlythrough her. A debilitating chill sank over him as he did so. But he paid noattention to it. He kneeled and wrenched off the cover of the jar and threw itaway. She came all about him in that moment, a white gale, a pale insectwhipping him with frantic opalescent wings. Primeval horror strangled him,swarming over his skin. He could smell only the grave, and phosphorescent wormscrawled across his eyes. He wanted—needed—to lash out, beat her insubstantialityaway, run yelling from the room—well-known sensations he was accustomed tocontrolling.

Vaguely,beyond it all, he heard a door flung open lower in the tower.

Herashes were Cilny’s link to mortal life.

Thelink had always to be destroyed, or at least altered. The means were as variousas the links themselves. The bone must be smashed, air mingled with itsfragments. The scarf, the glove must be charred in fire, flames mingled withthe cloth. Change was the key.

Theashes lay far down in the stone pot. He could see them, even through the whirlwindof pallor and dark. He unhooked the flask of white brandy from his belt andpulled the cork. Luckily, it did not take very much to render Myal Lemyaldrunk. There was enough left for the enterprise.

Dropoured the libation with a careful steady hand, covering all the floor of thejar. There was a brief smoke, as if from acid.

Suddenlythe swirling nightmare dispersed from about him. It was as if a great noise hadfallen silent.

Hestood up slowly, and looking around him saw Cilny’s face staring at him,huge-eyed, desperate, but it was the doll in the chair. Cilny was gone.

Shehad not cried out again. Perhaps she could not summon the power. Or perhaps, atthe very last, she had seen beyond the gate, seen that the land she mustjourney to was unknown, alien, yet not terrible after all, not to be feared.

Fora second, Parl Dro felt weak and drained to the threshold of illness. At suchtimes, his will expended like a loss of blood, he was inclined to believe theadage that for every ghost a ghost-killer returned to its death, he movedhimself a little nearer to his own.

Heleaned his shoulder on the wall and watched