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

had previously learned certaindisciplines. Believing the thesis that only in the astral form could a manenter the Ghyste safely, Parl Dro had set himself to acquire the skill oftrance, and the subsequent psychic release of the spirit body out of his flesh.By the time he died on the mountain, he had been a master of the technique somemonths. And so the thing occurred which he, with all his understanding of theundead, would never have supposed possible.

Abattle began, on some extra-physical plane that had to do with the world andwith some other place beyond it. The battle was between the two entities intowhich Parl Dro had split. One entity was furious to live, to seek Tulotef anddestroy it—now an ironical desire indeed. This entity, armed with its psychicdisciplines, knew it could reproject itself into the world in a whole andperfect astral form, the most lifelike and undetectable ghost that had everresisted its death. But the second entity had remained an exorcist, and thisentity fought the first, trying to drive it away into that otherworld to whichnow it rightfully belonged.

IfTulotef had been the only drawing force that called him back into the world offlesh, it was likely Dro the killer of ghosts would have won that ultimate waragainst his own revenant. But, of course, there was the link, also. Anirresistible link. Something that had belonged to him. But better than a boneor a glove, better than a tooth or a hank of shining hair. Much better. Muchmore enduring.

Probablyat first she had convinced her brutish man that he was responsible. He wouldhave turned to her now and then, as if to the beerskin or home cooking.Eventually, after her death, and as the child grew, the showman would have seencertain things. The light build which was hers, but the height which wasneither hers nor his, the hair which was her colour but a tone or so darker,the eyes which went sometimes black. The face, too, which by curious turnsbecame piercingly good-looking. And the genius, which came out in music with atalent the showman had never possessed. Myal. Parl Dro’s seed. Seed which hadgrown into an embryo, a child, a boy, a man. Something, nevertheless, which Drohad left behind in the mortal world. Myal, his son: the link.

Onthe plane where the two entities of Parl Dro fought each other, ghost-killerwith ghost, there was no time. But in the world, time passed. And as it passed,so Myal, growing into adulthood, became a link which, more and more strongly,called Dro back to life. In the end, the deadalive Dro had won. Then thecalling was reversed. He called to Myal blindly, seeing, if it could bedescribed even as “seeing,” only the link. Myal, who was psychic, and joinedalso by kinship, reacted to that tug, not knowing it. Still not knowing, hewandered back from the south, into those woods and over that mountain. He wentby his father’s decayed and crumbled bones, and naturally did not know thateither. He wandered into the valley village and waited, unknowing, for Dro towin the final victory, and come back through the gate to apparent mortality.And Dro, galvanised by Myal’s physical proximity, roused. In stasis, he was thesame age as at the instant of death, thinking the events of twenty-six-oddyears before had happened two or three days ago. Accordingly, he sought thewagon in the wood and failed to find it, and next he resumed hisinterrupted—how interrupted!—journey over the mountain.

Bythe time Parl Dro walked over that mountain, and toward the Soban house, he hadbecome truly the King of Swords, Death, an emperor of ghosts. And of deception.The deception of others, and of himself.

Forhere was a deadalive who had been trained to know every pitfall, everygiveaway. He made no mistakes. The rain dampened his garments. The dust brushedover him. He paused to eat and drink. He slept. He made love. He could bleed,and scar, briefly. Though not, of course, die. He walked in agony on a wholebut ruined leg, remembering only the ghoul on the bridge—yet, covering suchdistances—climbing rocks, and trees.... He would lever up the catch on adoor rather than pass straight through it. And often, though maybe not alwayswhen there was no one by, he would manifest in daylight. He could even fool hisfellow dead.

Atrue ghost, he had fed from the living. And he had fed from Myal. He, notCiddey, had begun to drain him. Though presently, Dro had unconsciouslyrecognised what he did, and tried to pull away, just as Myal, as frantically,kept after him, attracted, making excuses, snared. And then, from some well ofdiscipline and will inside himself, Parl Dro had managed yet another feat towhich ghosts did not generally apply themselves. He had ceased drawing off Myal’sliving energy. Dro had begun to build a facsimile of that force instead, aswith all his other extraordinary powers, withinhimself—a self-perpetuating flame. Even inretrospect, he was uncertain when this transfer had taken place. Like allghosts, he obscured, at that time, his own nature from himself, as he hadobscured his need of Myal before.

Myalwas psychic. He had inherited that from Dro. It had enabled him to follow Dro,when Dro had truly meant not to be followed, or seen, or found. Myal had otherqualities besides, qualities Dro had never had time to accumulate, and whichMyal had not had the scope to develop. Myal, who could be more stupid andineffectual than Dro could ever have dreamed of being, live or dead, had someglimmering sequin inside him, brain or spirit, that had sprung out of the soulof the world. Dro could not destroy that, whatever he might now feel about hisown condition.

Somepart of him had known always, of course, that he was dead. However powerful andextraordinary, still dead. He had gone after the ghost of Cilny with anunlawful dedication—the dedication of one who slays the plague victim in terrorof perceiving the same symptoms in himself. The Ghyste had been a similarfixation. But now that he had confronted himself and what he was, now he knewhe should be going, as Ciddey had gone at last so blithely and with such grace,shaming