He looked beyond her. To him, they were only a vague tumult, like mists boiling on the hill—archaic, stagnant ghosts. Their buildings were half-drawn in soft gray chalk against the sky. Beside the phantoms of the Ghyste, Ciddey looked very human. And Myal—he looked flesh and blood, kneeling on the hill’s edge, the dark-gold hair, the patchwork showman’s clothes, the pale face eaten alive with fright and personal trauma.
“Try for the guts,” said Dro to Ciddey. “It might be messy. Twist the knife a little, and it will be messier. If you get it right, a man can last up to three quarters of an hour, puking blood most of the time.”
He saw her drain whiter than her own whiteness and her eyelids flickered as if she were going to faint. She could kill, naturally, but the description had unnerved her.
“Maybe I will,” she said, biting her lip. “As you die, you’ll feel their claws. But you know what that feels like already, don’t you, if the stories about your damaged leg are true? I heard that story about you when I was a child. The kiss of claws and teeth.”
“Be careful,” he said, “you’re getting close to admitting your condition. You stole a lot of strength from Myal, and his inherent psychic powers let you become strong more quickly than is general. But to be a total success, you still have to believe you’re wholly alive. At least, for a while. Until you’ve settled in. And then you’ll find—”
“You’re talking too much for a ghost-killer,” said Ciddey. “I think I’ll stop you.”
Myal made an incoherent sound.
Dro glimpsed him jumping up, staggering, running toward Ciddey. Dro saw Myal’s hand snatch at her arm from too far off, and the snatch passing through her sleeve, missing a grip on ghostly muscle or bone. Dro saw Myal’s expression of utter non-comprehension as the knife thumped home in Dro’s chest. Despite her words, as on the first occasion, she had aimed for the heart.
The blow had pushed Dro, but no more than that. He stood, and went on watching. He watched the red blood spread from the sides of the blade, which quivered like a metal leaf buried almost to the hilt in his flesh. He took a desolate interest in it. He had expected pain, but there was none. He had presumably gone beyond any new pain by now.
Ciddey had retreated. Amusingly, she had backed into Myal, and they had each shifted aside to let the other pass. Dro half anticipated they would beg each other’s pardon. Now she poised there, staring. Myal stared, too. This continued for about a minute. Finally, Dro reached up and pulled the knife out of his heart. It was thick with blood. Ciddey coughed out a toneless little screech. So far Myal was too shocked, or too astrally oriented, to throw up.
Behind them, the misty boilings of Ghyste Mortua were fading out. They had recognised, if no one else had, the futility of brute force. Maybe they had even figured out why.
Dro let the bloody knife drop to the ground. As if it were a cue, Ciddey dropped on her knees. She crawled to Dro over the street. She had forgotten the ghost duke and his retinue, just as they had let go of her and the guide she gave them back into partial reality. Her hands fastened on Dro’s ankles and she shuddered.
“You’re an avenging angel,” she said. “Not a man, not a ghost-killer. An instrument of retribution.”
“I thought that was you,” he said.
“You’re not even—not even—”
“Not even bleeding anymore,” he finished, helping her. “The mark of the knife will fade in a few days. Perhaps less.”
“I must confess to you,” she said. She cried tears on his black boots. “Will I go to hell?”
“There isn’t a hell,” he said.