Kill the Dead(37)

Abruptly Myal began to play furiously, the notes skittering off his fingers. Reversed, the melody was no longer poignant, but of a hideous and macabre jollity, a dance in hell.

Myal, even over the sound of the strings, heard the sudden female laugh, high and clear as a bell. The noise almost froze his hands. The hair felt as if it rose on his head at a totally vertical and ridiculous angle. He shuddered.

“All right,” Dro said, “stop now.”

“Did it—Is she—?”

“Yes. She’s gone.”

For the first time, Myal cast a frantic glance across the ravine into the steeping of empty shadows.

Even he could not hide from himself that it had been too easy. Far, far too easy.

“Last night,” said Myal, “I didn’t see her then.”

“No,” Dro said. He began to walk back along the ravine side toward the low throbbing on the poplar trunks that was the fire. Myal hung about, terrified of being left alone, but not attempting to follow. After a moment, Dro looked around at him. “We’ll be travelling together after all,” he said. “I need to keep an eye on you. In case you remember what it is you did to give her this power through you. The music helps. But it’s more than the music.”

Myal held his ground. Angrily he said, “I told you I didn’t see her yesterday. It’s nothing to do with me.”

Dro said, in that curious voice of his which carried so softly and so perfectly across the atmosphere of night, “What did you say to her when she was alive?”

Myal’s thoughts poured over. The words stuck up sharp as flints. He wished they did not. He did not say them aloud.

“If you want my advice... you’d run for it.”

And she, “Where would I go?”

And he, “Maybe—with me.”

He did not say them aloud, but Dro seemed to read them off his guilty flinching face.

“You’d better understand,” said Dro, “you didn’t see her last night, because you weren’t near me.”

“I don’t get it,” said Myal. But he did.

And, “Think about it,” Dro said. “You will.”

Somehow Myal had given Ciddey a path back into the world, and she utilised him for that purpose. Myal was the means of her manifestation. But Dro, whom she hated, with whom she had a score to settle, Dro was the reason for her return. Now, while she had little strength, she might only trouble them. But when she grew stronger, when Myal, and her returning phases themselves, had fed her sufficiently—

Dro reached the fire and began to put fresh wood on it. Myal went after him, uneasily skirting each dark thicket and shrub, looking often at the oak tree on the hill.

But in the firelight, Myal relaxed somewhat. Dro had taken up again his position as watchman, though seated, his shoulders resting on a trunk.

Myal sat on the grass, glad to be near the fire. Dro’s carven, seemingly immovable figure was a shield between Myal and the night.

“How long are you going to watch?”

“Don’t worry about that. Worry about remembering what you may have inadvertently picked up, whatever it is she’s using to come through. Rack your brains. It shouldn’t be hard with such a limited number.”

Myal did not react to that. He was disorientated, so relieved to be no longer alone, he was almost happy. Eventually he asked, in a contrite voice, very aware of its inappropriate request: “You don’t have anything to eat, do you?”

Myal emerged from a thicket, flicking burrs off his sleeves with pedantic elegance—the cover for embarrassment—lacing his shirt and hopping, half in his boots, half out.

“I stripped and turned my clothes over.”

Dro stood and looked at him.

“I didn’t find anything that could have come from her. Nothing. Not even a hair.”

“All right,” Dro turned away.

“Of course, you don’t believe me.”

“I believe you.”

Brashly, Myal said, “Maybe she gave you something.”

“All she gave me was a claw mark down the side of my face. Which has healed.”

“Yes. Heal quickly, don’t you? Anything you can’t do?”

They ate the portion of bread that was left and drank water from the spring. Myal felt a constant urge to apologise, and started to whistle to prevent himself. Then he became conscious he was whistling Ciddey’s song, and went cold to his groin.