Free Kill the Dead by Tanith Lee Page A

He had been running from things since sunrise. Running from them, and toward them. Now too, he ran toward his future, and his trade. Although he did not know it, and just then would have wept if he had.
 
 
The fire was low. A crimson branch had broken open, whistling as the sap bled from it. The fortress wall hid the lights of the village from Parl Dro the man. Only the mild passage of the river at its summer low was audible, and sometimes a treacly chorus of frogs.
    He was thinking the endlessly repeated question. Did I simply curtail her dead-life because she would have robbed me of my human one ?
The answer came, as it always did, soothing him, never quite enough: He had not destroyed her in rage, not even merely in terror. He had grasped, or some part of him had, that this thing which would murder him, for whatever reason, could only be an echo, and a defiled echo at that, of the girl he had been companion to, the girl who had had such rights to love, whose human life he would have equated with his own. Wherever she had gone to, she had gone away from being that, that parody of herself.
The moon was up. A vixen screamed, miles off. He heard the muffled scrunch of a boot scraping on the brick causeway he had crossed hours earlier.
The imperative present had arrived.
Parl Dro sat, back to the wall, not moving. The meadow contained the footsteps which would now be negotiating it. Once there was a brief stumble. If he had not known, Dro might have taken it for some night beast tussling with rival or prey in the grass. Then the feet shambled over the uneven ground where the outer walls had come down. The stumbling was very evident now. Abruptly a voice cried out to him.
“Dro! Parl Dro! Are you here?”
Pitching his voice to carry as well, or better, than that cry, Dro said, “I’m here, Myal Lemyal.”
The feet erupted into an uncertain gallop. Suddenly, around the wall, the musician careered into view. His face was dead white, his eyes appeared as black as Dro’s. His hair streaked his forehead, plastered with sweat, and his sleeves flapped absurdly. Seeing Dro directly in front of him, he checked.
“So you’re here.”
“Unless, of course, you’re imagining me.”
Myal Lemyal jerked his head crazily. He drew the instrument off his shoulders and laid it carefully down. Then, with a hoarse bleak howl, he ran through the fire at Dro. There was a sharp stone in his right hand, the other was a stranglehold aimed for Dro’s neck.
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.