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

clinging to the sling of the instrument, he said to Parl Dro: “I’msorry.”

“You’re not only sorry, you’re a damn fool,” said Dro. He hadwalked out into the night and the village had borne him away to anaccompaniment of shouts and clanking flasks. He was too tired to resist. No, itwas not that he was so tired. He wanted to drown something, worse than naggingpain, a nagging doubt. So he sat with the village and tried to get drunk, whilethey tried to get uncanny anecdotes out of him. Mainly he fended them off; theyfell to recounting their own ghost stories–factual or imaginary. They told him the fortress on themeadow was haunted. When he said he had slept there the previous night, theyexchanged wise looks. He knew better than to attempt convincing them there hadbeen no haunt in the fortress. No one without the seventh sense could normallytell ghost from brick.

A few hours later, most of them were sprawled in various stages ofstupor. Dro was still sober, though his nerves hummed quietly, as if they feltthey should, from the alcohol in his blood.

He went out of the inn and down the street in the star-slitdarkness, to clear his head, or to make believe that it needed clearing. Whilehe could pretend he was a little drunk, he could partake of the drunkard’sprivilege and not think.

The rain clouds were gone. The moon was leisurely sliding down theslope to the belfry.

The woman called Cinnabar sat at the front of the potter’s shop.Queen of Fires. A dull glow lingered in the eye of the kiln, and she was in itsway, catching the light on cheek and breast and hair, and on her moving hands.

She was pinching out a little clay dog by moonlight. She glancedup and saw Parl Dro standing by the unlocked gate, watching her.

“You look tired to death,” she said.

“Aren’t we all.”

“Sometimes.”

“Can I come inside?” he said.

She looked down, almost shyly.

“Didn’t I say you could?”

He stepped into the shop. It smelled of baked clay, and of somewarm subtle perfume she was wearing. He had not noticed it on her before.

“I’ll offer you my bed again,” she said to the dog. “This time,just to sleep in. It’s a rare bed. Feather mattress deeper than sixteen seaspiled one on the other. It’ll do you good. You look properly done up. But Iremind you of someone, don’t I?”

He stood by her. Her fingers were very agile with the dog. Itlooked quite real, almost familiar, as if it might wag its tail, cock a leg orbark at any minute. He leaned down and gently kissed her temple. Her hair had agold edging from the fire, and the marvelous scent came from her hair.

“You’re very talented, Cinnabar,” he said, “and you have abeautiful smell.”

Her fingers left the dog.

“My man gave me a comb from some foreign place. The scent’s in thewood, and when I comb my hair, my hair takes the scent, too.”

“I’m sorry you lost him,” he said.

“You’re not,” she said. She rose and turned and looked at him. Hereyes were bright with tears. “Or maybe you are. I’m ashamed of myself,” shesaid. “Making up to a stranger. Or am I a stranger to you? Am I so very likeher?”

“You’d prefer me to go.”

“No,” she said. “The beds at the inn are full of vermin.”

“Perhaps suitable company.”

“Oh, you,” she said. Her tears seeped away again into their fount.

He kissed her in a rich dark forest of hair. The unique comfort ofhuman flesh bound both of them tightly together for some while after the kisshad finished.

“Tomorrow, before you leave,” she said, “there’s something–I’lltell you. Is your companion well enough to travel?”

“What companion?”

“The boy at the hostel. The man the ghost was visiting.”

“He’s nothing to me.”

“Ah,” she whispered, “don’t be too sure.”

She kissed him this time, smoothing his hair in long, repeated,serene and sensuous caresses. Presently she took his hand, and led him up thelittle stair, along the passageway, and into the feather bed sixteen seas deep.

The strains of musicspearing out of the hostel door were wonderful to the extent almost of sorcery.They fell in the compound in shards, like the morning sunlight. Pigeonsparaded, cooing in bemused fascination. A cat lay not far off, eyes narrowed,belly tilted to the sun, apparently a music lover and not hungry.

As he made the music, a sense of glorious well-being invaded themusician. When he left off, high waters of debility swept back in on him.Panting and dizzy, he set the instrument aside and curled on the bed. Silence.A cat leaped past the door, and the pigeons leaped into the air. A woman withterracotta hair came over the threshold.

Myal looked at her uneasily. Most women intrigued and scared him.Quite a few men too, for that matter. But then he relaxed. The woman had asweet and satiated look. Her heart belonged somewhere that was not here. Shewas totally unobtainable: safe.

“You’ve a great knack with music,” she said.

“Oh, thank you.” Myal smiled modestly.

“Parl Dro,” said the woman, “left the village an hour beforesunup.”

Myal’s face flattened with dismay. He sat up, went white, and laydown again. “That’s that then.”

“Not necessarily. If you were fit to travel by tomorrow.”

“I won’t be, anyway. Anyway, I can’t catch him up again. Anyway,what’s in it for you?”

He could guess what had been in it for her. So this was thetype that attracted King Death. Very nice too. But why was she interested inMyal?

“I read the blocks. They showed the two of you. There’s a balancethat needs you both.”

“Did he tell you about–?”

“Ghyste Mortua? I know about it. I have reason to bear a grudgeagainst the deadalive in that place.”

“It’s all a story,” said Myal slyly.

“Like the thing in here last night?”

Myal involuntarily glanced behind him. Despite the unguents of thepriests, despite the exorcism, he had not slept easily in this room. Onlyillness had let him sleep at all, drugging him with inertia.

“Well, a good story. Maybe true.”

“There was a town,” she said, low, staring at him, seeing not him,but images in her mind. Myal, lying dizzily watching her, began to see themtoo.

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