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

“What amystery. Won’t you tell me?”

“If it’she—his name is Parl Dro. But he has another name. A trade name. Ghost-Killer.”

The palemoon shadow, who was also a girl, long-haired and slender like the first,but—unlike the first—oddly transparent, drew back a little way, and hertranslucent hand drifted to her translucent mouth.

“We don’twant such a person here,” she whispered in her leaf voice.

“No. Wedon’t. So, hide, Cilny. Hide.”

Parl Drohad been looking at the house steadily, with two raven-black eyes, as he camedown the road. Mostly because such a dwelling betokened the proximity of thevillage he was aiming to reach before full night set in. Not that he was unusedto sleeping on bare ground. He was as accustomed to that as he was to therelentless grinding ache of the lame leg. He had known that hurt, in any case,some years, and had carefully taught himself that familiarity, even with pain,bred contempt. There had also been trouble not far behind him, which he did notwant to dwell on, because probably there would be more trouble not far ahead.

It hadperiodically happened that, arriving in some rural, out-of-the-way place, ParlDro, limping long-leggedly in his swathing of black, had been mistaken forDeath. Card-casting and similar divination generally foretold his arrival inthe shape of the ominous King of Swords. But then, his calling being what itwas, that was not so inappropriate.

He hadbeen subconsciously aware for half an hour or so of scrutiny from the house,and had not bothered with it. It was not unlikely that a stranger would bestared at out in the wilds. Then, when he had followed the curve of the roadand come level with the antique ironwork gate, something prompted him to stop.It might have been that uncanny seventh sense of his that had made him what hewas. Or it might have been only that more usual and more common sixth sense,the inner antenna that responded to quite human auras of trouble or mystique.He could not, at this stage, be sure. The house itself, leaning and overgrownin the gathering of night, was so suggestive of the bizarre, he was inclined todismiss his sudden awareness as imagination only. But Dro was not one to brushaside any occurrence too lightly, even his own rare fancies.

Presently,he pushed open the iron gate and went into the paved yard.

Over awell craned a dead fig tree. The other trees, jealous of its nearness to thewater source, had sucked the life out of it. Truly, a malevolent notion. Thehouse door, deep in a stone porch, was of wood, old and very warped. He went tothe door and struck it a couple of times.

As hewaited, the bright stars intensified against the night, and the ghostly moon,in the way of ghosts, solidified and assumed reality.

A beetleran up the ivy plant along the wall.

Nobodyhad answered the knock, though somebody was here for sure. The whole houseseemed to be listening now, holding its breath. Peering over at him. Possiblythe occupant of the house, alone after sunset, was quite properly chary ofopening the door to unknown travellers.

Dro’smethods did not include unnecessarily terrorizing the innocent —though he wasquite capable of it if the occasion warranted. He stepped back and moved awayfrom the old door.

The yardwas now hung with curtains of dark shadow. Yet starglow pierced the trees andglimmered in the well water.... There was something about the well. Something.

Parl Dromoved across to it. He stood and looked over the rim and beheld his ownfaceless silhouette blocking out the luminous darkness of the sky. A rustychain went down into the water. He let the impulse order him, and began to windthe chain up by its handle. The chain dragged from the bucket at its other end,and the handle creaked sourly in the quiet. His seventh sense was verydefinitely operating now. The bucket slapped free of the well at the sameinstant the house door crashed open.

There wasno preliminary warning, no stir in the house that had been audible outside. Onesecond the pool of the night lay undisturbed, the next second broken by theopened door, the dash of thin bright light thrown out across the yard from herpallid lamp.

He gotthe impression altogether of great pallor from the girl who stood there, apallor that for an instant sent the familiar dazzle up his spine. But it wasnot quite that pallor after all. It was the bleached dress, the flaxen hair infive slim braids, three down her back, one each side of her face and loopedover her ears. That, and her white skin, white hands, the right holding thenarrow flame in its tube of greenish glass, the left holding the long, bared,white-shining knife.

Dro hadhalted the bucket, his hand still taut on the handle. He stayed like that, andwatched her. He might have expected the not unnatural interrogation and bluff:Who are you? How dare you? My man will soon be here and see to you. None ofthat came. The girl simply yelled at him, in a shrill voice: “Get out! Goaway!”

He pauseda moment, letting her words hang. Then he said, pitching his own voice to carrylevel and clear, “Can’t I draw a drink of water from your well, first? I didknock. I thought there was no one home.”

He had abeautiful voice, marvellous diction that often worked like a charm on people,particularly women. Not on this one.

“Get out,I said. Now!”

He pausedagain, then let the handle go abruptly. The chain unwound with a screech andthe bucket plummeted under. He did it to startle her, and so it did. Theseventh sense was alert as a nerve, bristling. He walked around the well andback toward the door, toward her. He wanted to be sure, and that meanteliminating other explanations for her unfriendliness. As he went, he slippedthe hood off his head. As he walked slowly, his lameness was minimized, and hewas graceful. He kept his hands loose, free of the mantle, showing he had noweapon ready or considered.

Parl Drowas a remarkable looking man. Not as young, maybe, as he had been ten yearsbefore, but with an extraordinary handsomeness that had laid a velvety sombrebloom across