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 more 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.