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

and saw the men out in a blacksilhouette-dance around the fire, trying to quench it. He never got theirsilver, only the name of an arsonist, and the assured knowledge once more thatthe dead did not always die.

Thesmaller fire between the stones was sinking. Dro leaned to put on morebranches, and paused. Along the side of the ravine, the musician was playinghis music.

Drosat, the branches loose in his hand, listening. Fine as silk threads drawnthrough the dark, the notes sewed over and about each other. The melody wasoblique, tragic, stabbing somewhere inside the heart with a sweet piercingpain, removed yet immediate. Like that of any excellent minstrel, Myal Lemyal’smusic could find out emotions that did not belong in the humours or mind of thelistener, and plant them there and let them grow while the song sang itself.But Myal was much better than excellent. Myal, playing the bizarre instrumenthis father had killed to get, was one of the lost golden gods returned from themorning of the earth.

Then acold sighing came over the ravine, and stars scattered along Parl Dro’s spine.

Veryslowly, he turned his head, looking beyond the firelight and the frecklingleaves of the poplars.

Underthe oak on the hill the far side of the gully, glowing a little, like a fungus,shadow-eyed, smiling, still as a stone, sat Ciddey Soban.

Dro gotto his feet. She was looking exactly at him, and now, mostly unmoving, shemerely followed him with a serpentine turning of her head. She was scarcelytransparent any more. Only one limb of the tree showed faintly through thedrift of her skirt. Her skin, her hair, were quite opaque. Unlike her sister,this one was strong.

Hewalked, not fast, along the ravine side, toward Myal’s music.

Presentlyhe came to a boulder and saw Myal Lemyal lying against it, sound asleep, andplaying the instrument in his sleep.

Drokicked him in the side. Myal grunted softly, his hands falling over each otherand back to the strings, playing on. Dro leaned and slapped him hard across thejaw. The music sheered off, and Myal threw himself into a sitting position,plainly terrified.

“Ihaven’t done anything,” he cried, barely awake, the automatic protest of ahundred wrongful, and rightful, apprehensions and beatings.

“Lookacross the ravine. Then tell me you haven’t done anything.”

Myalstarted to look, and then would not “What is it?”

“Youasked me that on the previous occasion. The answer is the same as then.”

“I don’tbelieve you,” said Myal, refusing to look.

Droleaned down to him again, quiet and very dangerous.

“Whetheryou believe it or not, she’s used you. You summoned her with the song. I takeit it’s a song you composed for her. Now, tell me what else you stole from hercorpse.”

“Nothing!”

“Youinsist I search you?”

Myalslithered away backwards along the ground.

“Leaveme alone. I tell you, I didn’t bring anything, just her shoe–and you burnedthat.”

“Youdidn’t remember the shoe at first. Think.”

“I amthinking. There isn’t anything.”

“Therehas to be something. She’s there. She needs a link to be there.”

“Well,I haven’t got anything.”

“Backaway any farther,” said Dro, “and you’ll fall down the ravine.”

Myalhalted himself. He was about a foot from the brink. He hauled himself fartherin and, warily watching Dro, stood up.

“Istill know I haven’t got anything else of hers.”

“Thenyou picked something up without knowing it.”

Myallooked as though he might glance across the ravine, but he switched his back toit again.

“Whydid she wait till dark?”

“Theyneed the darkness. It’s the only canvas they can draw their liars’ pictures on.Daylight is for truth.”

“I’veheard of ghosts being seen by daylight.” Dro ignored this. Ridiculously,inappropriately, with death just across the ravine, Myal insisted, “Well, I have."

“It’sdark now,” Dro said, “and she’s there.”

“Is shereally?”

“Lookfor yourself.”

“No, I’lltake your word for it. I’m scared. I didn’t bring anything but the shoe. Ihaven’t...”

“We’llargue it out later.” Dro shifted as if searching for a firmer place to stand.“Tell me, are you right- or left-handed?”

“Both,”said Myal. ‘To play that thing, you have to be.”

“She,”said Dro, “was left-handed, what I recall of her, as any witch is inclined totrain herself to be. That song you played her, have you got it straight in yourhead?”

“Youdon’t want me to play it? You said—”

“I wantyou to play it. Backwards.”

“What?”

“Youheard. Can you do it?”

“No,”Myal raised the instrument and studied it. “Maybe.”

“Try.”

“Whathappens if I succeed?”

“Youget a prize. Her kind are more superstitious even than the living. Reflection,inversion of any sort, might get a response. If it works, she’ll go away.Start.”

Myalcoughed nervously. He settled the instrument. Dro stared across the ravine.

AbruptlyMyal began to play furiously, the notes skittering off his fingers. Reversed, themelody was no longer poignant, but of a hideous and macabre jollity, a dance inhell.

Myal,even over the sound of the strings, heard the sudden female laugh, high andclear as a bell. The noise almost froze his hands. The hair felt as if it roseon his head at a totally vertical and ridiculous angle. He shuddered.

“Allright,” Dro said, “stop now.”

“Did it—Isshe—?”

“Yes.She’s gone.”

For thefirst time, Myal cast a frantic glance across the ravine into the steeping ofempty shadows.

Even hecould not hide from himself that it had been too easy. Far, far too easy.

“Lastnight,” said Myal, “I didn’t see her then.”

“No,”Dro said. He began to walk back along the ravine side toward the low throbbingon the poplar trunks that was the fire. Myal hung about, terrified of beingleft alone, but not attempting to follow. After a moment, Dro looked around athim. “We’ll be travelling together after all,” he said. “I need to keep an eyeon you. In case you remember what it is you did to give her this power through you.The music helps. But it’s more than the music.”

Myalheld his ground. Angrily he said, “I told you I didn’t see her yesterday. It’snothing to do with me.”

Drosaid, in that curious voice of his which carried so softly and so perfectlyacross the atmosphere of night, “What did you say to her when she was alive?”

Myal’sthoughts poured over. The words stuck up sharp as flints. He wished they didnot. He did not say them aloud.

“If youwant my advice... you’d run for it.”

Andshe, “Where would I go?”

And he,“Maybe—with me.”

He didnot say them aloud, but Dro seemed to read them off his guilty flinching face.

“You’dbetter understand,”