Kill the Dead

Dro came to his feet, lightly and without hesitation, as if both legs were whole and worked on springs. As Myal collided with him, Dro was no longer there. Myal hit the wall with a frustrated moan. Turning awkwardly, he made a clutch for Dro’s sleeve. Dro allowed him to grab the sleeve. Myal raised the stone to smash it into Dro’s face. The face was intent, yet somehow uninvolved. The stone dived forward and came away from Myal’s hand uselessly. It whirred into the dark beyond the fire. They both heard it slam against another wall. The impetus of the abortive cast swung Myal over with it. He collapsed, tumbling against Dro, who caught him.

“I’ll kill you,” mumbled Myal, his head on Dro’s shoulder. “You murdering bastard. I will. I’ll kill you. I will.”

“Of course you will.”

Dro let him down gently to the ground. Myal sprawled there. He shook in uncontrollable waves of fury and fever, rolling almost into the fire. Dro rolled him back. Searing heat came through Myal’s clothes. He was a furnace.

“I’ll tear out your insides and tie them around your throat,” the furnace said to him. “In a bow.”

“How did you find me?”

“Don’t know. I found you. I want to kill you. I came all this way to kill you. Why won’t you come over here and let me do it? Damn you, I came all this way.” Myal began to cry. “I can’t do anything right, I never could.” He buried his head in his arms. He cried as if his heart would shatter. Presently he said, “Don’t beat me. Don’t use the strap on me. Don’t.” Dro pulled more branches across and piled them on the fire. The flames soared up, and Myal lay still on his side, watching them with the tears running sideways out of his eyes and into his hair.

“Next time,” he said, “next time, I’ll get it right. Don’t hit me, Daddy.”

“No one’s going to hit you,” Dro said.

“You will,” Myal said, “I know you. You will, Daddy, when you’ve finished that skinful of beer.”

Dro sat and looked at him. The shaking fit was gradually passing off. Myal stared at the fire, delirious, objective.

“It’s easy to follow you,” he said after a while. “You leave a kind of shadow behind you. I can’t see it with my eyes, but I know it’s there. I can find you simple as breathe.”

“In other words, you’re gifted with powers beyond the normal.”

“Lend me your knife,” Myal said slowly. “I can kill you with it. It won’t take a minute. I’ll clean it after.”

Myal’s eyes shut. He sighed.

“You ought to be exterminated,” he murmured. “I never had a big brother, someone to look up to. Someone I could kill.”

“Go to sleep,” Dro said.

“I wish I was dead.”

“I wish you were, too.”

Myal laughed.

“Did I ever tell you about the Gray Duke’s daughter—?”

He slept, relaxed, comforted, across the fire from the man he had come to kill.

CHAPTER FIVE

The Gray Duke’s daughter had made eyes at Myal. He had been flattered and afraid of her. She sidled up to him now with a wreath of lemon asphodel on her pale hair. Water ran out of her clothes and she was barefoot.

“Get up,” she said, “you have only to walk twenty paces.” Her voice was wrong. It was dark and clear and very definitely masculine.

“I don’t want to get up,” said Myal. “I don’t want to walk.”

“Yes you do,” said the voice. The Duke’s daughter had gone. Death, the King of Swords, was wrapping Myal in a blanket. The musical instrument was on Myal’s shoulder and was being wrapped in the blanket too. Death was handsome, older by ten or twelve years, or maybe more, than Myal, and he had one scratched cheek. Women scratched. Down the back if they were in bed with you, on the face if they would not, or you would not, and they were angry.

“I see she got you, then,” said Myal conversationally, “marked you. I’m glad she did.” He was not sure whom he meant. He was standing now but he had no legs. He was balanced on two columns of paper, which gradually buckled. Death grasped him. They began to walk. “You won’t get rid of me that easily,” said Myal.

“I’m afraid I will.”


They were in the open. An awful cold, or heat, smote Myal, disintegrating him. He fell forward dying, not caring that he died.