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

Theretainer tensed, given life. But, “How?” said the duke simply, over Ciddey’shead.

Ciddeysnarled. Her long teeth flashed silver. She had stopped being a girl. She hadbecome what she truly was. The hair could not rise on Myal’s astral scalp andneck, but nevertheless he felt it shifting. A movement smoothed over the crowd,also. A brief exploratory movement—testing itself —forward, toward Dro. AndMyal could see in it a host of flickering hands, a thousand nails, like longflat blades—the nails that went on growing in a grave, those things of the bodywhich, like the deadalive themselves, refused to acknowledge death. And, as ifto complement Myal’s observation, “How?” whispered Ciddey. “Why, just tear himin pieces.”

Myalturned wildly. Parl Dro only stood there, not reacting in any fashion. Myalturned as wildly back again. Like the first chord of a hideous song, Ciddeyordered the crowd to follow her, by willpower and sheer hate. He had lain withthat, comforting it and caressing it.

Sheslid from the horse and started to walk across to them, toward Dro. The crowdsurged after, one gluey, mindless, malevolent step at a time.

AsMyal moved, it was like plunging into a sea of ice. Breasting their hatred andhis own terror, he struck out frantically for a shore he never reckoned togain.

Hestepped between Ciddey and Dro, therefore between the whole ghost crowd andDro. As he did so, Myal slung the musical instrument off his shoulder andclutched it in his hands, digging his own nails into the wood of the two necks.Ciddey checked instantly, and the rest of them behind her.

Heshook the instrument at her—his hands were shaking anyway—and she recoiled.

“Rememberwhat you told me,” Myal said. His voice shook too. He wondered if his legswould give way.

Ciddeysmiled. The smile showed only her lower teeth, and suddenly her eyes seemed tomelt into black sockets.

“Iremember, betrayer,” she hissed. “I told you about my milk tooth and how myfather thrust it into the wood to replace a piece of ivory that had fallen out.I remember.”

“Thetooth’s your psychic link,” said Myal. He stammered a little. He was now socold he could barely feel what he held. The instrument might slip through hisgrasp, evade it as the pebble had. He must not let it. “If I destroy the tooth,you can’t stay here. Can you?”

“No,”she said softly, still smiling.

“I’lldo it,” he said.

“Oh,”she said, “great ghost-killer.” Then she laughed, except there was no sound.Out of her open mouth flew instead a silver blade, which landed on the pavedstreet by Myal’s boots and flopped there. It was his turn to recoil. Ciddeyheld out her left hand, and stream water dripped from it, trickled, gushed. Thewater poured around the landed fish, which was whirled up in it. Ciddey heldthe water there like a silver shawl, and the fish spiralled in the water. “You’lldestroy the tooth, will you?” she said. “First you have to dig it out of thewood with your knife. Or do you have a knife? Perhaps you can borrow Parl Dro’s.The knife he used to pick the locks of my house on the night he killed Cilny.But then,” said Ciddey, twirling the water and the fish in bizarre loops andcoils, “but then, I forgot. Even before that, you have to find out which of thepieces of ivory ismy baby tooth. They’re all so smooth now, and so yellowed. They all look thesame. Don’t they, minstrel?”

Myalstared at her, then at the instrument. Of course it was true. All those tiny chipsof bone—he had never even counted how many—

Ciddeyflung her shawl of water over him. He jerked aside at the vivid sting of itswetness, while the tail of the fish, completely palpable, horrible, thrashedhis cheek. Then the crowd of dead things was pushing by, a single pulsingentity. He was smothered, trodden down, kicked, panicking and yelling, and thenabruptly, thrusting through, surfacing, denying their force could affect him.

Hestruck bodies, cloaks, mail and hair out of his way. He had somehow a bright anddetailed image of himself, as if a mirror were hung up in the air—a lunatic,teeth snarling, irises encircled by white, and he was sprinting. He wonderedwhat he was doing, and before he had the answer he had already reached the endof the street where the overlaid roofs tumbled down across each other’s backs.Or seemed to. Where, in fact, the bare hillside dropped off into the night. Hisarms were out, throwing something violently away. It seemed to be himself hewas throwing, but then a weight was gone, and he was left behind it. A sharpcry of loss broke from him. But then the cry was covered by what seemed to himthe most awful noise he had ever heard.

Flunginto space, falling fast toward impact and death, the musical instrumentscreamed.

Itwas a shrill tearing scream, slender, fearsomely melodious, composed of manynotes sounded all together and without pause. Its very soul seemed crying. Ithad been cobbled together, a drunkard’s jest. It had come to life slowly as theboy Myal began stupidly, improbably, to play it. It had grown a spirit as achild grew length of bone and breadth of skin. It had grown life. It hadbelonged to Myal, and now he had killed it, and as it tore down the nothing ofthe atmosphere toward destruction, it shrieked to him. He knew it was only theair rushing up through the stops of the reed. He knew that. It made nodifference.

Hestood upright, but moaning ceaselessly, as if he had been hurt. He had. He didnot even think to look back, to watch Ciddey Soban crouching in terror, tensedfor the crash and the splintering which would shatter the linking tooth alongwith everything else. Myal had forgotten her, forgotten Tulotef, and Parl Dro.He merely wanted the scream to end, wanted the instrument’s agony of fear toend in the quickness of the death blow.

Thenthe scream cut off, and Myal, spreading out his hands as if to fly, nearlypitched off the hillside in the instrument’s wake.

Itwas Ciddey’s mocking voice which brought him out of wherever it was hisemotions had taken him, her voice crisp as the sound of a coin ringing on thestreet.

“Youcould never do anything