Kill the Dead Read online

  Kill the Dead

  Tanith Lee

  To Valentine

  Kill the Dead

  By Tanith Lee

  © 1980

  Kindle edition 2013

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to real people, or events, is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form.

  The right of Tanith Lee to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988.

  Cover Illustration, ‘A Crooked Mile’, by John Kaiine

  An Immanion Press Edition published through Kindle

  http://www.immanion-press.com

  [email protected]

  Ghostslayer

  Parl Dro tore up the plank and his fingers thrust through the soft rot beneath and touched the single bone embedded there. It belonged to the ghost, when the ghost had been a man. Through the concrete essence of that bone, the ghost, unwilling to depart, had kept its hideous link with the condition of life. A hundred persons had since died because of it. It had exulted in their screams of terror and agony. It would have killed the rest of the world if it could.

  Even as Dro raised the bone towards the jaws of his vice, the ghost was on him. Made corporeal by its long pseudo-existence, it had the energy to drag him down and fling him over.

  The dead who lived, like the mirror image, right hand in reverse, tended to attack leftward or sinister. It occurred to Dro quite abruptly that the ghost had fastened its teeth and nails into the calf of his left leg, ripping and gnawing at him.

  Introduction

  This book, which is partly at least about deceptions (both of others and oneself) has, perhaps not illogically, itself incurred a kind of deceptive myth. For what it’s worth, then, I shall try to set the record straight.

  In the summer of 1977, a radio play of mine, the first of four bought by the BBC, was recorded and broadcast. For me this really was Heaven-on-wheels. I loved every moment of seeing/hearing it come to life, through the voices of such wonderful actors as Jill Balcon, Stephen Thorne, Elizabeth Bell, and Sean Barrett, not to mention incredible music composed by Christos Pittas, and gleaming direction by Richard Wortley. And needless to add, I loved every one of the subsequent productions, too. However, on the heels of the first play I received an invitation to write a TV script, for the by-then cult SF series Blake’s Seven. My delight at this–I had watched the show from its first episode–was not unmixed with fright. Where I had felt at home with the medium of radio from the start, TV was quite another country. Though my radio plays were far from unflawed, I’d had no fear of being unable to evoke the actual mental furniture required for their presentation, even placing my music cues with confidence. But, of course, I’d been avidly listening to radio drama from the age of six upward, while my family–poor as underpaid church mice–never even had access to a TV until I was twelve. And, despite the fact in those days TV was rich in marvellous drama–Chekhov, Shakespeare, Ibsen, Pinter were regularly staged, not to mention amazing things from Jack Rosenthal and, later, Alan Ayckbourn–I still felt I knew very little about the modus operandi of a novice TV writer’s task.

  Having met the production people, however, who were both helpful and inspiring, and some of the actors–ditto–I accepted the commission and duly wrote Sarcophagus. And I have to say, once I got over my initial timidity, the script flowed, and indeed very little was altered for production. My intention from the start was to attempt to focus, in turn, on each of the characters (a possibility of my doing more scripts was mooted quite early). I aimed, at least slightly, to unravel two of the main characters in that first story: Cally, the telepath widowed of her people, and the devilish, clearly also messed-up Avon. I wanted to open them both out on the screen, and more than aided by the powerful acting of the cast, I think I managed it somewhat. (My second episode, Sand, took on Servalan–a damaged psychopathic fiend held in an exquisite form–for my money Jacqueline Pearce was and is one of the most beautiful women in the world. Long before Servalan, I had seen her act in classical roles, as well as the extraordinary (again cult) horror films The Reptile and Plague of the Zombies. I believe she is one of our great actors, mysteriously recently underused. It goes without saying she also brought the second script to vivid life.)

  Actors are probably the people that I am most fascinated by, and certainly rank high for me among those I respect. Having met the cast of Blake’s Seven, then seen them at work, and got to know some of them at least a little (Jacqueline remains, I am honoured to report, a friend), it was perhaps inevitable that at least one or two of them might get into future writing of mine.

  I have to say, both before and since, I have often ‘employed’, as it were, actors in roles in my novels and short stories. To name but a few: Vivien Leigh (many, many times), Elizabeth Taylor, Gillian Anderson, Rutger Hauer, Oliver Cotton, and Dennis Franz. How lucky I am to see (for when I write I do see everything very clearly) these glamorous and brilliant people acting the roles I have visualized them into. Unpaid as well. But then I suppose they didn’t have to learn the lines, or travel to the frequently remote and/or perilous places they inhabit, while the book is in progress. My gratitude for the truly sublime, and sometimes electrifying motivation they have unknowingly given me, aside from my utter joy when watching them act out in the so-called Real world, is far beyond thanks. But I do thank them all, so much.

  Paul Darrow then, unwitting at the time, stepped into the role of the main male character in Kill the Dead. A description of Parl Dro (a clue, too, is in the invented name—this is occasionally also obvious with other actors I have ‘written in’) reveals Mr. Darrow at the stage and era he then occupied. But here I must stress, for this is the erroneous myth which somehow attached itself to this novel, it is not Avon I am writing about. Indeed, to have done that would have been not only an infringement of strict copyright, but also a bloody cheek. Although I had much enjoyed examining Avon’s character a little, inside the legitimate bounds of Blake’s Seven, I would not have dreamed of trying to reproduce him elsewhere. So, it is Paul Darrow the actor, who is acting Dro in these pages. A man damaged both physically and mentally by his bizarre and tortured trade, a man who, frankly would have, I think, earned both Avon’s contempt, and Avon’s complete horror. And in addition, to be quite fair, even Paul Darrow’s handsome appearance and manner of interpreting character underwent, during the book, endless changes. That usually happens. I think actually only Vivien Leigh, Elizabeth Taylor, and Jacqueline Pearce remained exactly physically like themselves throughout those several Lee novels they have adorned.

  Meanwhile, I did write a play for Paul Darrow–my fourth for BBC–The Silver Sky. I even got my photo in the Radio Times for that one! The other part was for lovely Elizabeth Bell. Again, I was enormously lucky that they both agreed to do it. Their performances are gems, especially Elizabeth’s blend of courageous and sexy, tender femaleness, and Paul’s faultless rendition of that last, very demanding, monologue. (As ever, there was a great supporting cast, and glorious director—Kay Patrick.)

  Incidentally, when I later told Paul Darrow (at a Blake’s Seven party) that I had had the sauce to recruit him to act Parl Dro, he was very nice about it, and laughed with some amusement. The few actors I have told have never been unkind. They laugh, or even seem interested.

  The last misunderstanding that has added itself to Kill the Dead is that Michael Keating (Vila in Blake’s Seven) plays the part of Myal Lemyal. Sorry, he doesn’t. I believe that mix-up came about because I also wrote a play for Michael–Darkness, which the BBC didn’t want. It is a good play, and with mor
e of the sort of imput producers and actors have always given me, it could, maybe, have been very good, but there. Meanwhile, I had compared Kill the Dead’s Myal to myself. Again, a clue is in the name –my all, etc: A talented idiot.

  That then is the Truth about KTD’s relation to Blake’s Seven. I do myself think that something of the style–wisecracks, put-downs, even long areas of dialogue–that I used in the show, also inform the book. And I do think too that Paul’s ‘performance’ in the character of Dro, even if changing into a real and separate being–as all my characters seem to do, to me, in that parallel universe I am blessed to have access to–added immeasurably to the novel.

  If curious enough, one might also look up another book of mine, Sung in Shadow. It is a wild re-telling, in a parallel Renascence, of Romeo and Juliet. He has a secondary starring role in that, one of the non-teenage figures. It’s a meaty part. He more than did it justice.

  A handful of years back I wrote a monologue specifically for Jacqueline, and later one for Paul, as part of MJTV’s CD series The Actor Speaks. The disks are highly intriguing and entertaining, both for their frank interviews and their other examples of terrific drama written by actor-producer Mark Thompson. While for me, it’s particularly magical to hear both JP’s and PD’s (musical) voices rendering my words–at the touch of a button.

  Writing is my life. It is among the best of all the best things for me. But those times when I’ve been fortunate enough to be interpreted by so many actors of such golden calibre, on radio, CD, TV, and film, I consider some of the most radiant events in my career.

  Tanith Lee 2010

  CHAPTER ONE

  “Cilny—we are in danger.”

  The shadows did not answer.

  The only way down from the mountain was by a steep, tortuous steel-blue road. About ten miles below the pass the road levelled grudgingly and curled itself around toward an upland valley where trees and a village were growing together. Half a mile before it reached the village, it swerved by the wall of a curious leaning house.

  There were trees growing by the house, too. Their roots had gone in under the foundations, seeking the water course that was otherwise evident in the stone well just inside the ironwork gate. Gradually, the roots of the trees were levering the house over. Extravagant cracks ran up the walls, and a dark-green climbing plant had fastened on these. Over on the north side, however, the house itself had at some time put out a strong supporting growth: a three-story stone tower.

  The tower was probably defensive in origin. Its three narrow windows looked northwest toward the mountain, over the smoky tops of the trees.

  The sun was down. At this hour the mountain seemed to take on exactly the twilight color of the sky behind it, and might almost have been made of a slightly swarthy and imperfect glass. Modestly, other more distant heights had retreated into soft charcoal strokes sketched over the horizon.

  From the uppermost window of the tower, it was possible to see the mountain road very clearly, even in the dusk. And better still after stars, as if ignited by tapers, burst into white dots of brilliance overhead, and a pale quarter moon floated up in the east.

  A figure was coming down the road from the pass. It was wrapped up in a black hooded mantle, but its general shape and mode of walking showed it to be masculine. Showed, too, that it was lame. At each stride, for strides they still were, there came a measured hesitation on the left side.

  When the black-mantled lame man striding down the road was some seventy paces from the house, the girl at the tower window drew back swiftly into the room. Turning to the shadows there, she repeated her whisper with a restrained desperation.

  “Cilny—we’re in danger—terrible danger. Can you hear me? Are you there? Oh Cilny, answer me.”

  This time there was a response. The shadows, at their very thickest in one of the tower’s deep corners, seemed to part. Pale as the quarter moon, a shape slipped from between them.

  “I’m here,” said a voice less a whisper than the rustle of a leaf on one of the trees outside. “What is it?”

  “Darling Cilny, my only and best sister,” said the girl who had watched at the window, “there’s a man walking along the road. He’s lame in the left leg, and dressed in black. I may be mistaken, but I think I know him.”

  The pale moon shadow laughed gently, a leaf laughing. “When did you ever meet such a man, Ciddey?”

  “Not meet. Never met. Never to meet, I hope and I pray. But I’ve heard talk of such a man. Old tales.”

  “What a mystery. Won’t you tell me?”

  “If it’s he—his name is Parl Dro. But he has another name. A trade name. Ghost-Killer.”

  The pale moon shadow, who was also a girl, long-haired and slender like the first, but—unlike the first—oddly transparent, drew back a little way, and her translucent hand drifted to her translucent mouth.

  “We don’t want such a person here,” she whispered in her leaf voice.

  “No. We don’t. So, hide, Cilny. Hide.”

  Parl Dro had been looking at the house steadily, with two raven-black eyes, as he came down the road. Mostly because such a dwelling betokened the proximity of the village he was aiming to reach before full night set in. Not that he was unused to sleeping on bare ground. He was as accustomed to that as he was to the relentless grinding ache of the lame leg. He had known that hurt, in any case, some years, and had carefully taught himself that familiarity, even with pain, bred contempt. There had also been trouble not far behind him, which he did not want to dwell on, because probably there would be more trouble not far ahead.

  It had periodically happened that, arriving in some rural, out-of-the-way place, Parl Dro, limping long-leggedly in his swathing of black, had been mistaken for Death. Card-casting and similar divination generally foretold his arrival in the shape of the ominous King of Swords. But then, his calling being what it was, that was not so inappropriate.

  He had been subconsciously aware for half an hour or so of scrutiny from the house, and had not bothered with it. It was not unlikely that a stranger would be stared at out in the wilds. Then, when he had followed the curve of the road and come level with the antique ironwork gate, something prompted him to stop. It might have been that uncanny seventh sense of his that had made him what he was. Or it might have been only that more usual and more common sixth sense, the inner antenna that responded to quite human auras of trouble or mystique. He could not, at this stage, be sure. The house itself, leaning and overgrown in the gathering of night, was so suggestive of the bizarre, he was inclined to dismiss his sudden awareness as imagination only. But Dro was not one to brush aside any occurrence too lightly, even his own rare fancies.

  Presently, he pushed open the iron gate and went into the paved yard.

  Over a well craned a dead fig tree. The other trees, jealous of its nearness to the water source, had sucked the life out of it. Truly, a malevolent notion. The house door, deep in a stone porch, was of wood, old and very warped. He went to the door and struck it a couple of times.

  As he waited, the bright stars intensified against the night, and the ghostly moon, in the way of ghosts, solidified and assumed reality.

  A beetle ran up the ivy plant along the wall.

  Nobody had answered the knock, though somebody was here for sure. The whole house seemed to be listening now, holding its breath. Peering over at him. Possibly the occupant of the house, alone after sunset, was quite properly chary of opening the door to unknown travellers.

  Dro’s methods did not include unnecessarily terrorizing the innocent —though he was quite capable of it if the occasion warranted. He stepped back and moved away from the old door.

  The yard was now hung with curtains of dark shadow. Yet starglow pierced the trees and glimmered in the well water.... There was something about the well. Something.

  Parl Dro moved across to it. He stood and looked over the rim and beheld his own faceless silhouette blocking out the luminous darkness of the sky. A rusty chain
went down into the water. He let the impulse order him, and began to wind the chain up by its handle. The chain dragged from the bucket at its other end, and the handle creaked sourly in the quiet. His seventh sense was very definitely operating now. The bucket slapped free of the well at the same instant the house door crashed open.

  There was no preliminary warning, no stir in the house that had been audible outside. One second the pool of the night lay undisturbed, the next second broken by the opened door, the dash of thin bright light thrown out across the yard from her pallid lamp.

  He got the impression altogether of great pallor from the girl who stood there, a pallor that for an instant sent the familiar dazzle up his spine. But it was not quite that pallor after all. It was the bleached dress, the flaxen hair in five slim braids, three down her back, one each side of her face and looped over her ears. That, and her white skin, white hands, the right holding the narrow flame in its tube of greenish glass, the left holding the long, bared, white-shining knife.

  Dro had halted the bucket, his hand still taut on the handle. He stayed like that, and watched her. He might have expected the not unnatural interrogation and bluff: Who are you? How dare you? My man will soon be here and see to you. None of that came. The girl simply yelled at him, in a shrill voice: “Get out! Go away!”