Kill the Dead by Tanith Lee Page B

it.”
“But the one who doesn’t want it. Or do I only remind you of someone else?” She smiled at him. “I’d like,” she said, “to sail a boat across the black pools of your eyes. You’re beautiful. Even better than they say. And much younger. I know who you are, you see. Maybe it’s true, the other story.” She waited for him to ask her what other story. Of course, he did not. She said, “The story no ghost-killer ever sleeps with anyone. That unspent sex builds up a reservoir of power. Like the proverbial virgin being able to snare a unicorn. Not that I’m saying you’re a virgin. Or that there’re unicorns, for that matter.”
There was a silken dappling on the street. Silver strings tautened past the open door. The woman glanced at the rain.
“I think I know where you’ll be going. If it exists. When you get there, you might wish you’d been nicer to me.”
“Why?”
“Oh, you’re interested now, are you? ‘Why?’ Because when I said my man was away, I was simplifying things. He left me two years ago, to try your business. He wasn’t so clever, and didn’t get so famous as you. I don’t think he lived as long as you have, either. He left me to look for the old town, the one they call the Ghyste Mortua. He never came back. I never thought he would. Maybe he found some woman he liked better, and that’s why he stayed away. Or maybe he found the town, on the side of the hill, or in the lake, where the landslide left it. The ghost town. And it killed him. He could never make me understand. He said the Ghyste was in this world, and not in it. That you could only find it at certain times of year, when particular stars were here, or there. But he was one for the lusts of the flesh, my man. Perhaps that’s why he was no good at your vocation. Parl Dro.” She got up, turning her face to the rain flicker.
“This morning,” she said, “awhile before sunrise, I saw a girl go up the street. There was no one else about. She went right by under my window. I didn’t recognise her, but it was dark still. Then I saw something shining. She was leaving wet footprints on the street. She went toward the priests’ hostelry. When she got close to the wall of the compound, the first light started to come, and I could see the brickwork right through her back.” The woman stood looking at the rain.
Presently he spoke.
“Maybe you should alter your trade.”
“Maybe I have. I played the riddle-blocks later. I cast the King of Swords, that’s you. And in the Zodiac, the water sign of the Two Fish, and the air sign of the Harp–that’d be your sick friend, probably–the sign of the weakling and the genius. She was there, too. The Virgin, riding on the unicorn, gripping the chain around his neck. Watch out, handsome hero.”
“All right,” he said. “Thanks for the warning.”
“If you want me,” she said, “for anything, it’s the house behind the potter’s shop. I’m called Cinnabar.”
“I’ll remember.”
“See you do.”
 
 
During the afternoon, when smooth rain shadows slicked the hostel, Myal’s fever had lifted him on firework wings. He had chattered at great length, and one by one the priests had stolen in to listen. They heard quite a few unusual things as, under the pretence of stoking the brazier, bringing fresh coals, blankets, aromatics and wet cloths to moisten the storyteller’s burning lips, they clustered at the bedside.
They heard of strange predilections of the Cold Earl’s, of moonlight falling on naked maidens astride the backs of stallions. They learned of the Gray Duke’s daughter, and a certain sequence in a wood. They learned of court orgies and romps. And sad seasons when leaves ran yellow in the streams and money came in the shape of other men’s pockets. They learned of Myal’s drunken father, bloody-eyed and strap in fist, and of all the bullies who had assumed that father’s shape in later years, dukes, innkeepers, stewards and jailers. The priests clotted