Hewas not apprehensive now, not even desperate anymore. Merely determined, likeany heir to a fortune, to claim his birthright. Dro had only one thing of worthto offer Myal, and that was the acid elixir of his own company; his erudition,his harsh judgment, the razors of his tongue and his mind. Myal had grown up ina beast pit, and the earth had gone on looking that way. He was tired of it. Heneeded a new vantage. He understood Dro could give Myal his own self, or showhim where his self was to be found. He did not intend Dro, who had sown himaccidentally, and abandoned him in death, to get away with it. Myal hadacquired the trick from women he had had trouble with, maybe. But it was stilla valid trick, and he had the knack of it: blackmail.
Forthe rest, he knew Dro would no longer vampirise him. Dro was independent to afault, and had learned to fuel himself, like some volcanic fire, once ignited.Myal’s other role, as Parl Dro’s reason for life—or reminder to live—Myalaccepted gladly, and with amused pride and a desire to please. It was fine,even funny, that till Myal died, Dro would not. Improvising on the humour, Myalhad now one mad recurring vision, which tended to make him giddy with laughter.It concerned himself at fifty-five or so, and Parl Dro, his father, stilllooking the age of the hour of his death, some fifteen years younger than hisson. Or perhaps Dro would age now, logically, a master of all life’s disguises.
“It’seasy to follow you,” Myal had said to Parl, beside the fire in the ruinedfortress, as the night shook with fever. “You leave a kind of shadow behindyou. I can’t see it with my eyes, but I know it’s there. I can find you simpleas breathe.”
Itwas admittedly a little harder to trace a man permanently in astral form, oncehe had decided to remain mostly invisible. Yet here and there, the beacon sentout its ray, the habit of corporeality proving too much for even Parl Dro’sfortitude. And meantime, the link itself was the best guideline in the world.And what would Myal say when he caught him up? It was still difficult to besure how to get around someone like Dro. Though, of course, now he believed hecould do it. Somehow.
Thesun burned in the black flames of poplars.
Thehigh sky was only a clear luminous parasol. No cloud. Not even a bird. Not yeteven a star.
Butthe unseen shading was vivid. It had led him over a hunchbacked hill, off theroad, down a meandering track and farther into the trees. The light began to gosuddenly, like water running through the fingers.
“You’rea magician,” Myal could say to Parl. “You can kid anyone you’re only a man, butyou can walk through walls. You’re invulnerable to death by blade or rope orpoison or any other normal agency. You could get in a king’s vault and stealanything you felt like. And you want to throw all that away? As a professionalthief, I resent that.”
Andhe could say to him, “I never had a father. I had a thing with a leather strapin its hands.”
Andhe could say to him, “You knew I’d come after you, like before. Stop makinggrand gestures and face facts. All right, you’re guilty about the others yousent off. But you’re determined to survive however you possibly can.”
Thefulvous leaves softened into dark greens and umbers, and the branching stemswere cool as ash. The glade was empty, or appeared to be.
Myalstopped, and looked at it, swallowing his heart as usual, glancing casually ata particular vacant area between two trunks.
“Well,”said Myal, his voice light and carrying, with an exquisite diction.
Inthe area between the trees, the unseen shadow emerged, dim and formless.
“Isaid,” said Myal, “well.”
Andthen he fired sheer will across the glade, the psychic’s instrument of intentand survival. It hit the place between the trees, bound and held, and hauled.And Parl Dro evolved, filled in by velvet blacks, till the paler sculpture ofthe face was firmly marked between ebony mantle and raven’s hair.
ParlDro looked at Myal with slight anger and mild interest. His disapproval wasalmost comic in that instant, his foreboding beauty almost touching; hisdespair, if he did despair, was hidden.
AndMyal laughed at him, and Myal looked himself beautiful and ruthless as a goldangel fallen straight from the setting sun. Just like the prince he had alwaysreally known he was.
“Well,”drawled Myal for the third time, knowing now what to say. “Fancymeeting you.”
