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

him—now he could not leave the world. For the link must bemetamorphosed—burnt, crushed, dissolved. Dro’s link was Myal. In order to befree of his own imitation life, Dro would have to take Myal’s life. Dro wouldhave to kill his son. It was Myal’s apparent death that had first shocked Droback toward self-realisation. He could not face that death again, not even withhis own as the result of it.

Onealternative remained. To get away from Myal now and forever. For though he didnot need to feed from Myal’s life force anymore, Myal was the motive, the ropethat bound Dro to the world, or rather to which his deadaliveness clung.Cinnabar had grasped that fact, while not even comprehending it. Unless shehad. She had thrust Myal into Ghyste Mortua as Dro’s safeguard, his mental anchorin the midst of supernatural chaos. Yes, probably she had known it was a demonlover in her bed sixteen seas deep. Just as she had known he saw Myal’s motherin her. Just as she had known it all.

Myalwas sitting now, staring at the earth. He cried easily, not necessarily a flaw,though plainly he himself categorised it as such, for he attempted to hide thecrying from the weird dead father at the other end of the wall.

Drohad never loved anything, anyone. Not even Silky, who had only been a part ofhimself, as Myal was.

“I’msorry about the instrument,” said Dro matter-of-factly.

“Damnthe instrument.” Myal cried harder, for he had loved the instrument. He triedharder to hide the crying. He tapped the wall with his long neurasthenicfingers. It did not look like a wall any more. It was a ridge of the bare hill.The building and the blank yellow lamps were gone, and the bells and wheels andhammers and songs. Maybe they had exorcised Tulotef after all. Just talked itaway by a recital of cruel truths.

“I’msorry about everything,” said Dro.

“Butyou told me.”

“It’syour right to know.”

“Butnot my right to hope anything good will ever happen.”

ParlDro picked up a flint. Idly, but swiftly, on the ridge he scratched his name.Backwards.

“Andnow I’m going,” Dro said.

“Don’t—”Myal looked up. He was afraid.

“Getout of this place, and walk back to Sable’s hovel. You’ll find it easy tolocate, because you’re there, in the flesh. By tomorrow, you should be able toget into your body again. You’re stronger than you think.”

“I’mnot as strong as you think. You think I can take allthis and stay sane. Well I can’t. Where will you go?”

“Justsomewhere to wait”

“Whatfor?’

“Todie. In my entirety. Ghosts do die. I’ve learned that from Tulotef.Particularly with no incentive, it could be quite quick.”

“Whynot,” said Myal flippantly, “wait till I die. The link would break then,wouldn’t it?”

“Youmight live a long time. I hope you do. But I’ve got no right to be here. Thinkabout my problem. I spent my life killing for a cause. I can’t refuse to killmyself for the same ethics.”

“Youbastard.”

“Tryto learn some new dialogue,” Dro said.

“Morelike yours,” Myal sneered.

“Preferablymore like your own.”

Myalstarted to say something, but the sentence stayed in his mouth, because ParlDro, handsome Death, the King of Swords, had vanished between one breath andanother.

Forten minutes, Myal charged about the hill. He shouted to Dro, or against Dro.Then he stumbled and slid, and when he came to rest hard against a spike ofrock that seemed to have been set there purposely to impale him, he feltsomething snap under his shoulder. He looked, and found he was lying on theshambles of the broken instrument.

“Youlearn to play this, you ugly cretinous little rat,” Myal’s father hadaffectionately said to him—but not his father, after all, had he not alwayssuspected? “I killed a man because of that. I killed him good and dead.”

Myalsupposed it wasbecause of the instrument. Because of his father—his unfather—being awayto buy the instrument, Dro had slept with Myal’s mother.

“Ikilled him good and dead.”

Myalheld the broken sound box in his arms, and wept in the dead black country ofthe night.

CHAPTERONE

As thesun westered, it dyed the great branched candelabra of the trees. Trunks andboughs were steeped in patches of yellow-amber. The leaves were shiningsaffron, a prophecy of the autumn, no longer so far away, for the westering ofthe day allegorised the westering of the whole year. The end of summer was anarid scent, like the dust along the road.

Myalwalked at a rhythmic pace. At each step, the bag on his shoulder jounced. Therewas a stringed instrument in the bag, nothing odd about it, a battered vintageguitar he had diced for in a ramshackle village, and, to his surprise, won. Hehad been thinking about the best way to portion and cut the body when he couldfind a twin for it and how to cut the twin too. Then there was a suitable reedto come by, and all the carpentry which these things would require, to fix themin place. He did not make the plans quite lightly, either, for remembrance oftheir forerunner still gnawed at his heart. It always would. He had buried thebits of wood and wire on the hill of Tulotef. The first grave made there forcenturies. Certainly, the first grave to be mourned.

Butgrief did not have to jeopardise other emotions. The awareness of being insidereal flesh made him secure, just as practicing the trance state of astralrelease exhilarated him. There had also been some luck in the past month.Gambler’s luck and minstrel’s luck. Even luck with a girl in a lowland cottage,a girl who wanted only a day and night, and not all his days and nightsthereafter. Maybe the old woman in the hovel had blessed him. He had given hera present of three of the silver pegs from the dead instrument, since she hadcared for him so well during his... absence. She had also sewn his shirttogether where she had cut it previously, searching for the drug that trancedhim. Actually, her name was not Sable. That was just the scrawl on the doorwhich related to a former tenant. Parl Dro had not been right about everything.This notion had cheered Myal, as, with a droll cunning, he set out on hisquest. He had been cheered as well by the