“What about her?”
There were angry murmurs now. As he began to walk through, Dro felt the new hardening and congealing of the press around the table, not wanting to let him go this casually after he had worked them to such a pitch. Even in the thick of that, however, Dro was entirely conscious of the featherweight grip that delicately flickered out the coin bag from the inner pocket of his mantle. Dro did not glance the musician’s way. A pickpocket’s skill was not one he necessarily despised, nor did he necessarily grudge its reward.
The boy led Dro to the stair.
“Straight up. Door to the left. Aren’t you going to do anything about Cilny? You’re supposed to be a legend.”
The crowd surged sulkily, not looking at Dro, like a woman who thought herself slighted. The musician was tuning the instrument again, leaning on a table, engrossed, dull gold hair falling in his eyes, innocent.
The elderly boy assumed a sneer as he watched Dro begin the lame man’s crow-like hopping up the stair.
“Well, what a disappointment you turned out to be.”
Dro paused on the landing and turned on the boy the most dazzling and friendly smile he was ever likely to have received. The Ghost-Killer seemed to be waiting again. Unnerved, the boy jeered: “A real disappointment. I hope I never have to see a worse one.”
“Keep away from mirrors,” said Dro, “and you won’t.”
He stepped through the left-hand sinister door.
CHAPTER TWO
An hour before dawn, Parl Dro was on a narrow wooden bridge above a savage river. Swollen by melted upland snow, the water crashed about the piled stone pylons of the bridge, snapping its jaws hungrily at those who passed over. But there was something on the bridge that was worse than the river. It had been a man once. Now it was a fleshless, long-nailed shape, solidified by years of post-mortem manifestation, capable of appearing solid and real as the river below. More real, actually, than the bridge, whose timbers were in parts rotted away. Hate had kept it there, a hatred of all who remained alive after it had died.