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

a minstrelwanting to make a song of the Ghyste and be famous. Didn’t you ever warn him?He’ll never be a success, he’s too good. Too good a musician to be famous or tobe loved. He’s a genius. He’ll never be recognized in his own time. We onlyrevere the rather good, the very good, not the best, never the best. Not untilthey’re safely dead, and can’t take advantage and hurt us. Never applaud amagician. For his next trick he might eat the world. Ah!” she exclaimed. “Oneheartbeat. Yes, I saw it in his throat. Help me put him on the sled.”

“IfI left you money,” said Dro, “you might look after him, while I get on.”

“Aren’tyou curious,” said the crone, “about the cause of the trance?”

“Thedeadalive have been feeding off him.”

“It’smore than that. Help me put him on the sled.”

Drowent by her, lifted Myal and laid him on his back on the sled, on top of thepiled branches, which snapped and broke. Dro took up the instrument, and nextthe corded ropes. His leg complained, sour, easy to ignore.

“Whichway?”

Theold woman nodded. She waddled ahead of him, going south between the trees.

Tenminutes later, he followed her into a clearing. The eyelets of sun fell on theground and splashed the walls of a stone hovel. It had been in existence somedecades, and the foundations had considerably subsided into the earth. Brightherbs or weeds flowered in a patch near the leaning door. A wooden post stoodup there, with two hands made of weather-stained plaster clasping each other ontop, probably the local sigil for a healer. Daubed eccentrically on the leaningdoor, difficult for him to decipher, were the words: SABLE’S HOUSE.

Drowondered briefly who came here. Presumably there was a village or a townadjacent, though he had seen no sign of one piercing the forest, from the ridgeabove. Or maybe the town had been abandoned, encroached on by the trees, bypoor living, by famine or a plague. And only the old woman remained, somehowkeeping alive, though how was rather a mystery.

Shethrust open the door, and motioned Dro to drag the sled and the death-trancedman inside. It was a dark room, still full of the night. It smelled of damp andthe low smoky fire, and soon of the two fat-tallow candles she lit in thewalls. There was a herbal smell also, and pots, buckets and urns were stackedin all directions. A bundle of rags in the corner was the bed, and here Dro wasinstructed to set Myal.

Sable—thatwas, one assumed, her name—came over and peered down at Myal, who looked asdead as any dead man Dro had ever seen, and yet was not.

“Washe skilled at trancing himself?” Sable inquired.

“Notto my knowledge.”

“Youknew him well?”

“No.But well enough to know that, I think.”

“Itisn’t any ghost brought him to this,” said Sable. “It was a live one. Healer.Herbalist. Meet anyone like that, eh?”

“Onlyone who played with it, and she’s dead.”

“There’sa drug can do this,” said Sable. “It turns life down low, like a lamp, just aspark left burning. And with a psychic talent, that lets the spirit out. Youknow what that means, ghost-killer? It means you have the ghost of a man that’sstill alive.”

“Allright. But how did she do it?”

“I’lltell you how. In a minute. Got a knife?”

Drostudied her, then took out the knife and handed it to her, hilt first. Thecourtesy made her laugh soundlessly. Then she bent and ripped the knife alongMyal Lemyal’s chest. In the dull light, it took Dro a moment to realize it wasthe shirt, not the man, she was quartering. With careful delicacy she pickedoff the leaves of cloth with the knife, not touching them with her fingers. Apocket had been torn and certain obtuse items dropped from it onto Myal’s skin:a copper coin with a hole through it, a defaced die, a coil of wire that mighthave had to do with the musical instrument, a little clay dog.

Droknew the dog at once, and could not remember from where. First he pictured ittied to the wheel of a wagon. Then he saw Cinnabar in the glint of her oven,pinching the dog from clay.

Sableshifted the dog aside, using the knife. There was a faint transparent mark onMyal’s flesh where the dog had rested. The torn cloth of the pocket was damp.

Involuntarily,Dro leaned forward.

“Don’ttouch,” said Sable. “The little animal’s clay, and the clay’s been made porous.The drug’s been poured inside, and then seeped out after a while, right throughclay and cloth and skin. Tactile poison. Doesn’t need to be drunk, justtouched. Carried over the heart, where he carried it, it did very nicely.Gradual, you understand, bit by bit—then whoof! Out like a candle, and thespirit gone away. He must have done something she didn’t like. Lady’s man, washe?”

“Notexactly. Can you wake him up?”

“Notexactly. I’ll move the clay animal and the drug will stop seeping into him. Weknow he’s psychic. If he’s strong enough, the spirit can try to get back. Or ifhe isn’t, it won’t. In any case, it’ll take days. Days and nights.”

CHAPTER NINE

The sun moved and increased itsfire, and came to stream through the hovel’s open door.

Sablebrewed herbal tea, which she trickled into a little iron cup and handed to Dro.There seemed to be no food in the hovel, or possibility of food outside. Noteven mushrooms, let alone a chicken, a cow, apple trees or vines. Probably shelived on the tea.

As hedrank it, a green sweet-sore memory passed through Parl Dro. He identified itreluctantly. Sable’s brew was like the tea Silky’s grandmother had concocted,in that spick-and-span town hovel almost thirty years in his past

Theydid not speak for a long while, keeping as silent and almost as quiet as Myalon the bed of rags. Matter-of-factly, Sable had stripped the musician andworked over his body, massaging with her extraordinary hands. She displayednone of the easily tickled, impotent lust of the elderly, nor much concern.Twice, she asked Dro to turn the younger man’s body. Finally, she had himplaced on his back, his head slightly averted toward the right shoulder, and aragged, not unduly filthy sheet, pulled up over him.

Thesunlight, creeping