Kill the Dead(33)

Sometimes he marvelled when he thought about the complexity of the instrument. It was so simple to him, yet who else on earth would ever be able to play it? Two only that he knew of, its inventor, and the strap-brandishing father—who had never properly mastered it. Myal watched his fingers curiously. The secret lay in some mysterious affinity between prediction, inner ear and action. Each touch on any string of one neck supplied not only a note, but the pressure to tune in the note on the opposite neck—which supplied, vice versa, its own note and simultaneous pressure for the first note. When the reed was blown, the fingers that caused these pressures, coincidentally stopped the various holes, activating in turn other notes. But how could one man carry three or more opposing harmonies, all interrelating, dependent upon each other, in his brain at once. In fact, when Myal played the entire assemblage of the instrument at once, six or seven or even eight lines of melody could emanate from it, chords, descants and contrapuntal fugues.

The mare liked the music.

Sunlight rained through the leaves.

He stayed in the saddle until they came out of the wood on a rocky slope up in the air.

A huge landscape sprawled away on all sides. He was high enough to observe the strange natural quarterings of the land, divided like a board game by dim smoke lines of trees, the slashes of ravines, troughs of valleys. The river, a last partition, spilled to the south, slender as a tear. There were no roads that Myal could see. Dismounted, he peered down the craggy slope.

“Lost the way yet?” he asked the horse.

She pulled forward against the reins.

When they reached the bottom of the slope, he found they were in a dry stream bed, and went on leading her over littered pebbles and moss. The stream opened out, just after noon, into a park-like flatness with the trees elegantly poised at intervals in courtly groups. He investigated the provision bag and ate. The horse neatly clipped the grass, gardening restfully.

They rode on at a medium pace over nearly flat ground, which still sloped at an infinitesimal angle downward. The walls of rocky hills ran alongside northeast and south, but miles off. Great clouds swam over, like the keels of enormous ships in the sky. The afternoon became full-blown, and one by one its petals started to drop away.

Myal saw Dro suddenly conjured before him, walking, a tiny black figure, like a speck, then a beetle.

Myal’s reaction was reflexive. He pulled on the reins and the mare halted. Myal shivered, his stomach turned over and sank, all of which annoyed him. He tapped the horse, and she broke into a whirlwind sprint.

If Dro heard him coming, which seemed likely, he did not look around or even bother to get out of the way.

Myal raced past him in a spray of speed and kicked-up clods. He wheeled the mare about and stopped her in Dro’s path. Myal raised his brows and stared at Dro in the midst of the wide and uninhabited land.

“Well, fancy meeting you.”

CHAPTER SEVEN


“Where did you steal the horse?”

Dro had given no evidence of any particular reaction, and his voice was noncommittal.

Myal sat in the saddle, suddenly depressed.

“I didn’t steal it. It’s on loan from your girl friend.”

Dro said nothing.

Myal began to feel tired and weak. He remembered he had been delirious with fever only two days ago, and a wave of shocked self-pity swept over him.

“It wasn’t my idea,” said Myal, “to follow you. Your redhead persuaded me. She seemed to think you might need me.”

Dro laughed, short and sharp.

“All right,” said Myal. “Screamingly funny.”

He slid off the horse and stroked her dejectedly. She lowered her head and bit at the grass. The light was solidifying, fragrant with currents of wind that tasted of clover or trees. The imminent end of day brought to Myal an imperative desire to communicate. He looked at Dro.

“I have to send the horse back to the village.”

“Why not go back with her?”

“I told you. I’m heading for Ghyste Mortua. Just like you.”

Dro made a briefly theatrical sweeping gesture to the east, offering Myal the freedom of the nonexistent road: “Please.”

“Put it this way,” said Myal desperately. “I owe you some money. Debts worry me.” He broke off. He wondered why he was so desperate. Probably it was a simple fear of being left alone by night in this weirdly self-sufficient open country, no trace of a human presence anywhere, save here.

“I release you from your debt,” said Dro. He walked by Myal and away. Myal stood and stared after him, struggling for arguments, and against his own absurd panic. The black figure grew small again, and smaller, and the light reddened. Myal glanced westward. The sun had lowered in a group of trees. The trees were on fire, but did not burn, and inch by inch, the sun slipped through the bottom of their cage of branches.