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Somehow word had got around that he was dead.
"There will be more of them," Dro told the musician as he wiped his knives on the dead man's clothes. Myal was still too busy being sick to answer him. The stench of blood and faeces filled the forest clearing, joined now by the stench of vomit. "We shall have to move quickly," Dro continued. He sheathed his knives again and stood. "And you'll have to actually pay attention to your training. Do you think you can manage that? It's important, Myal. This isn't a game. If you don't learn, they'll kill you, just like he tried to do."
"I thought I was being trained to kill ghosts," Myal said when he thought he could manage to say anything without resuming his former state. He stood, very carefully not looking at the man on the ground, very carefully not remembering the way the dead eyes stared.
"Ghosts," Dro said carelessly, "ghostkillers, what's the difference?"
"Well, in your case not much," Myal said, "but with most people, quite a lot." Dro smiled thinly, still not able to take a joke about his corporal status. "Wait," Myal said, turning back to the corpse and then wishing he hadn't, "you mean he was a ghostkiller? You mean your friends are trying to kill me? A gang of highly trained mass murders are on my tail? Oh god.”
"No," Dro said.
Myal breathed more easily. "You know, you almost scared me half to death."
"As you've remarked before, Myal,” Dro said, “I don't have any friends. My former colleagues will be trying to kill you, my former rivals. Men trying to make their reputations. And one man,” he finished, “who doesn't have to. He is the one we have to worry about."
The day seemed to get cooler. "Who is he?” Myal asked. “What does he look like? How can we stop him? Can we stop him?
"Oh yes," Dro said, more to himself than to his son. He had his back to Myal, so the musician didn't see the way he smiled before it became too painful and he had to let the smile fall. "Oh, yes,” he said, “I'll be very disappointed if he doesn't show up."
*
Myal Lemayal had had a good evening. Or as good an evening as you could have when a gang of highly trained mass murderers were on your tail, you had no money and nowhere to live, and your father was a dead ghostkiller who was trying to teach you the family business but didn’t have the patience for teaching. Or talking to people.
It was around eight in the evening, and Myal had just sung for his supper: a thick soup, a loaf of bread and a large tankard of ale. More food than he'd eaten in weeks. Dro seemed to think staying ahead of the men tracking them was more important than stopping to eat, and had ignored Myal's protestations that if he didn't eat he was going to die anyway, and then where would Dro be?
They were linked by blood. If Myal died, then so would Dro. If he didn’t, Dro would live forever. That was why the ghostkillers were coming after him. Dro had killed four of them now. Myal hadn’t killed any and wasn’t likely to. Killing ghosts was one thing - it was just an unpleasant name for what was in fact sending tormented souls to their rest. Killing alive men was something else, even if they were out to get you. Myal didn’t even eat meat.
A large, elderly man sat down beside him, even though there were plenty of other empty seats around the tavern. Myal looked up at him and smiled in friendly greeting.
The man did not look at him, but after a while he said, “You play very well.”
“There are some who call me a genius,” Myal said modestly.
The man smiled. “Can I buy you a drink?” he said, indicating Myal’s empty tankard.
“That’s awfully kind of you,” Myal said. “Even geniuses get thirsty.”
The man twisted in his seat and caught the arm of a passing barmaid. “Two more ales,” he said. “And another of whatever my friend here is drinking.”
Myal grinned at that, and at the thought he would soon be brought another drink, and then the man turned to look at him. The skin under his left eye, which had been hidden from Myal until now, was puckered and shiny. A thick gouge ran down his cheek and the eyelid hung low over an eye that still sparkled with intensity and intellect. Myal put this together with the man’s build, his curling grey hair, and his age. He had been younger than Dro when they’d worked together, but Dro had been dead for decades and had returned to life as a man of forty, while this man who wasn’t his friend had grown old.
“You’re Thom,” Myal whispered.
Rath Thom smiled pleasantly at him. "Where's your father, Myal?" he asked in the same even tone he’d used to ask whether Myal wanted a drink.
"He's dead," Myal said, still thinking instinctively of the man who had beaten him and demanded he learn an impossible instrument, rather than the ghostkiller. “Has been for years.”
Another smile. "Why do you think I'm here?" Thom asked. The barmaid returned with their drinks, and Thom glanced quickly up at her with a smile and a “thank you,” before his uneven gaze returned to Myal.
Kill him on sight, Dro had warned. He’s the best at what he does.
“I’m armed,” Myal told the man who’d come to kill him and his deadalive father.
“I’m not armed,” Thom said easily. Myal looked down at Thom’s graceful hands and imagined them squeezing the life out of him. As he did so, one of the hands rose and indicated another corner of the room with two outstretched fingers. “But my friend over there is.”
Knowing it was a bad idea and would expose the base of his neck, Myal turned away and looked in the direction Thom had indicated. In the candlelight that lit the tavern, he saw what he thought was probably the glint of a crossbow bolt resting on the table. The man sitting behind it gave him a tight smile. He had bright red hair and a pale, worried face. He didn’t look like a killer, but then you could never be sure.
Myal turned back. He swallowed. “So you’re going to kill me,” he said.
“Whatever gave you that idea?” Thom asked, eyebrows raised.
“He did,” Myal said, and they both knew they weren’t talking about Thom’s friend with the crossbow.
“He’s not a very trusting man,” Thom said. He frowned. “No, I’ve come to save him. Well, to save you, which is the same thing.” He reached inside his jacket and withdrew a black glove. He held it up so Myal could see and then dropped it on the table between them.
“What’s that?” the musician said, eyeing it distrustfully.
“You know what it is,” Thom said levelly.
“One of his?”
“Mm,” Thom said. He pinched his lip between two of his fingers and surveyed the glove between them. “He left it with me thirty years ago. It’s not as powerful a link as his bond with you, of course, but it should serve to keep him here as long as he wants to stay. All we need to do is transfer his spirit from one to the other. Then he can keep the glove on him, and nobody will be able to touch him. Now it’s not easy, and as far as I know it’s only been done once before-”
“No offense, but it doesn’t sound much like it’ll work, then,” Myal said. “And if it doesn’t, what’s the other option? Killing me in front of him, which will be easy if I take you to him.”
“I thought we’d already agreed that if I wanted to kill you, I would already have killed you,” Thom said. “Let’s further agree that if I wanted to haul you out of here and summon Parl Dro the deadalive ghostkiller to watch you being disemboweled then I could do that too.”
“Is that meant to make me feel better?” Myal asked, looking miserably into his ale. “Try working on your bedside manner.”
“Myal, I’m sure this will work,” Thom said, his voice emphatic and driven for the first time since he’d sat down. He picked up the glove and returned it to his jacket. “Your father is exceptional. Well, so am I. Who do you think performed the only successful spirit-transfer that I’ve ever heard of?”
“You?” Myal asked after a moment. Thom shrugged as though to say, well, there you are then, and Myal frowned. “But you’re a ghostkiller-”
“Yes,” Thom said. “And Parl Dro was my friend. If I can save him, I will. He’s not harming anyone, except those stupid enough to go after him. In fact, I hear he’s continuing with his calling. That’s commendable. And I’m not so blinded by my calling that I think a living person should be forfeited just to banish someone who isn’t harming anyone.”
“Parl Dro doesn’t have any friends,” Myal pointed out.
“No. That was a euphemism,” Thom told him.
“For what? Enemy?” Myal asked. Thom smiled and drained his tankard of ale rather than answer. Myal looked back at his own tankard, and remembered something else that didn’t make sense about Thom’s story. “He told me what had happened, with me being his link, was unique.”
“It is,” Thom agreed, inclining his head. “As far as I know.”
“So why have you done this spirit switching thing before? Another friend,” he put emphasis on the word ‘friend’ to imply how little he thought of that claim, “in need, was it?”
Rath Thom chuckled. “No, no. It was about ten years ago. The deadalive baron of Negel was wreaking havoc over the southern continent. I couldn’t find his focus, so in desperation I transferred the link to his personal Bible. Then I burned him out of existence. It seemed to work.” He stood, dropping some coins on the table. Then he nodded to the man in the corner with the crossbow, and looked down at Myal. “Shall we go then?”
“Er,” Myal said. And then he thought of how Thom had said, Let’s further agree that if I wanted to haul you out of here and summon Parl Dro the deadalive ghostkiller to watch you being disemboweled then I could do that too.
“All right,” Myal said, standing up. “Let’s go then.”
*
The place where Myal had arranged to meet Parl Dro that evening was deep within the woods, about a mile away from the tavern where he’d met Thom. For a man of at least sixty, Rath Thom was in exceptional health, but as they neared the edge of the wood his breathing grew heavier and he slowed.
“You go on ahead,” he said to Myal. He stopped and leant against one of the outer trees. “Warn him that I’m coming, if you like. Let him make his own decision about whether to trust me or not.”
“Thanks,” Myal said. “I will.” And he tore off into the forest, glad to be away from Rath Thom, the ghostkiller who scared Parl Dro.
As he ran, though, the fear that had frozen his mind gradually lifted. Could Thom be letting him go as a trap? It didn’t seem likely. Ten minutes ago, Thom had had a hostage and Parl Dro knew nothing about it. What could he achieve by letting Myal go? Not much, Myal thought, and, although he did not realise it, began to trust him.
He is the best at what he does, Parl Dro had told Myal a few weeks before. And what he does is use people. He will make you want to help him. If he has time, he will make you love him. And then he will destroy you.
He'd sounded so bitter that Myal had wanted to console him, even though it was he, Myal, who was going to be killed by this dangerous psychopath, and even though Parl Dro was not a man it was easy to comfort.
He hasn’t destroyed you, he’d offered.
Not yet, Dro had said.
The deadalive ghostkiller was sitting in the appointed clearing, idly sharpening one of his knives when Myal emerged, coughing and spluttering.
Dro sprang to his feet. “What it?”
“Rath Thom,” Myal said, weakly. “He’s,” he breathed in deeply, “here. Or he will be here... any minute. I left him... back at the edge of the forest.”
“That’s quicker than I expected,” Dro said, with a smile that seemed somehow to be proud of Thom’s speed. He sheathed the knives again, returned to his pack and withdrew a crossbow of his own. It was already loaded and Dro hefted it to shoulder height.
“He says he isn’t coming to kill you,” Myal said, his voice more fluid now, although his heart still pounded in his chest. It should have slowed down by now, but the sight of the crossbow was as terrifying as Dro’s smile. “He says he has a plan to transfer the link from me to this glove you gave him. He said that’ll make us both safe.”
Dro looked sharply back at Myal. The corner of his mouth twitched. “Do you believe him?”
“As a story it’s holier than the Misteena Chapel,” Myal said.
“That’s what I thought,” Dro said and aimed the crossbow in the direction Myal had come from.
“ButIdon’tknow,somehowIdobelievehim,” Myal said in one desperate breath.
“That’s because you don’t know him,” Dro snapped. “The man who taught me my calling would never betray it by letting a deadalive continue to walk. Whatever he’s told you is a lie. Now come out, Thom,” he shouted into the trees.
There was a rustle of leaves. Slowly, the old ghostkiller emerged into the clearing.
Myal had thought Dro would shoot Thom as soon as he appeared, but he didn’t. He seemed to have forgotten what he was doing. Strangely, the same was also true of Thom. It was as though the sight of each other, here in this place, had been too sudden and surprising and upsetting for either of them to bear, even though they’d both been prepared for it.
In the year or so that he’d known Dro, Myal had never seen him express any emotion other than irritation. Now he looked devastated. He raised the crossbow so it was no longer pointing at Thom.
“Is it true?” he asked, stepping forward slightly.
“Parl, it’s me,” Thom said, like a growl. He too began to move forward, but Dro stopped him.
“Stand still,” he demanded, but it sounded like an entreaty. His eyes were large and shining. “Have you betrayed us? Have you betrayed me?”
“Of course I haven’t,” Thom said with some of the fire Myal had seen in the tavern.
“No,” Dro said, as though it was being ripped from his guts. The crossbow lowered again and the bolt twanged from the string, embedding itself precisely over Thom’s heart. He gasped in surprise and pain, and staggered forward.
Dro stared at him and did not catch him as he fell to his knees. Thom’s hands closed around his arms.
“Oh, you... idiot,” he grated with his final breath. Then his strength failed, he released Dro, and collapsed the rest of the way to the forest floor.
For a moment, nothing happened. Myal watched Dro, and Dro stared down at the dead man at his feet. Then, from outside of the clearing, there came the sound of branches breaking and someone shouting Thom’s name.
“Thom! Thom! They’ve found us!” the voice shouted. “There’s five or six of them, all ghostkillers. Thom, if you’re going to do this, you have to-”
The red-headed man from the tavern burst into the clearing. Myal looked up at him, Dro did not. The man gaped at the scene.
Then there was another twang and a thump and he staggered forward. Myal saw, as he fell, that there was a crossbow bolt embedded in his back. The musician turned and began to run out the clearing in the other direction, but there were men closing in from all sides. Another crossbow bolt hit him in the leg. Another hit him in the chest, and another in the shoulder.
As Myal fell, he saw Dro finally look up from the man he’d killed. Dro’s eyes were black, and he smiled as he stepped over Thom’s body and flared out of existence.
I must be dead, too, then, Myal thought as he passed out.
*
To his surprise, he woke. To his even greater surprise, he woke somewhere nice, rather than in a bloody heap on the forest floor. There was angelic singing and the air smelled clean.
That figures, Myal thought, and resigned himself to being dead. Well. At least I’m in heaven. Wouldn’t have put money on that.
He turned over and pain blossomed in his leg and his shoulder. Myal swore and tried to sit up. It hurt, so he collapsed back on the bed with more and louder swearing.
“Now, now,” a woman’s voice said, “less of that language in here, please.”
Myal risked opening his eyes again, and saw a tall lady in dark grey bending over him. She tucked his bedsheets around him again. “Where’s here?” he asked. “It’s not heaven, is it? Unless heaven’s not as good as it’s cracked up to be.”
The woman tutted. “You’re in the Saint Agnus Convent,” she told him. “So please refrain from speaking about our eternal salvation in such a familiar manner.”
“Right,” Myal said. “I will. Thanks. And I didn’t mean to be rude about your facilities,” he called after her as she walked away. “I only wish I didn’t hurt so much.”
“Think of it as proof you’re alive,” a voice said from Myal’s left. The musician turned over and saw the red-headed man from the clearing lying in the neighbouring bed. The man smiled gently at him. “We didn’t get properly introduced before,” he said. “I’m Dayvad. I was working with Thom.”
“Is he around here too?” Myal said, trying to sit up.
“No,” Dayvad said. Myal saw the rest of the beds in the room were empty and lay back down again. “I’m afraid he’s dead. Parl Dro killed him.”
“It was an accident,” Myal said wretchedly. He’d woken up in heaven, but discovered it to be a lie almost immediately. For all the soft bedding and choral music, this was hell. “I told him Thom was trying to help him, but he didn’t believe it. And then he asked whether Thom had betrayed his calling, and Thom said no- but he didn’t mean that. He meant he hadn’t betrayed us. That he was trying to help.”
“I know,” Dayvad said.
“It was an accident,” Myal repeated. He pushed his knuckles into his forehead, trying to block out the sight of Rath Thom dead on the floor and Parl Dro, dead too but still standing and staring in horror at him. “He wouldn’t have done it if he hadn’t thought Thom was going to kill us both. You have to believe me.”
“I do,” Dayvad said.
“It’s really not- wait, you believe me?” Myal said. He opened his eyes. “You mean you’re not going to kill me?”
“I’m not much of a killer,” Dayvad said, with another smile. “But even if I was, there’s no reason to kill you any more. That’s why the other ghostkillers brought us back here. They’re not actually bad people. Well,” he frowned, “not most of them anyway.”
Myal looked at him in bemusement. “No reason? What do you mean, no reason?”
Dayvad’s face fell. “Parl Dro’s... gone, too,” he said. “Can’t you feel it? I would have thought you’d be the first to know.”
Myal stretched out with his consciousness, sifting through all the things that were and would be in the universe, in search of the individual rhythm that his father had beat across the world. Myal had followed that sound across counties, always feeling the faint murmur of Dro tugging against his heart. Now the pressure was gone.
“Yes. You’re right,” Myal said, wondering if he was sad about this. He thought, on balance, he probably was. Dro had been a difficult man, but it was hard not to love someone who’d come back from the dead because of you and spent their afterlife aggressively protecting you.
On the other hand, now Dro was gone, Myal didn’t need protecting. He could stop defining himself against the man who was his father, as much as he’d stopped defining himself against the man he’d thought was his father. He could do whatever he wanted. Whatever that was.
“I can’t think of any reason he’d go other than a loss of purpose,” Dayvad said thoughtfully, breaking through Myal’s reflection. “You’re still alive, and Thom didn’t get a chance to transfer your father’s link to the glove, did he?” Myal shook his head. “So it’s not a destruction of the focus. I think he just didn’t want... to go on.” Dayvad smiled in a sort of pained way. “Funny. Thom never talked about what they were to each other, though I guessed something from his side. Transferring the focus would have taken five years off his life. It was a stupid risk. But the way Thom talked about Dro… well, I had no idea Dro was in love with him, too.”
“No,” Myal said softly. “ I don’t think he knew, either.”
*
They said goodbye to each other outside the convent three weeks later. Most of Myal’s wounds had healed, but his leg still ached. Perhaps, he thought, he would have a limp to remind him of his father. He hoped, without meaning offense to his father’s ghost, that he wouldn’t.
“So, this is it then,” he said, gripping Dayvad’s hand.
“Yes, I suppose it is,” Dayvad said. “What will you do?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Myal said carelessly. “I hadn’t really thought about it.” He pulled the new impossible instrument around his shoulders until it was hanging over his front, and strummed it as he thought. “Keep killing ghosts, I suppose. It’s what I was born to do. But my way, I think. Not his.”
“Do you… know what you’re doing?” Dayvad asked hesitantly.
“Not a clue,” Myal said. “But I’m sure I’ll figure it out. What about you?”
“Not a clue,” Dayvad said with an awkward smile. “That is - I don’t know what to do with myself now. I do know a lot about ghostkilling...”
“Is that an offer of company?” Myal asked.
“Would you accept it if it was?” Dayvad asked.
“I don’t know,” Myal said. Then he grinned. “Do you like music?” He twiddled the strings of the instrument. “I’ve been called a genius.”