Taltos

Nine

IT WAS NOT so changed. It stood in its forest or park, without locked gates or dogs to protect it, a great manor house of fine arched windows and myriad chimneys, luxuriously large and luxuriously well cared for. One could imagine those times, looking at it. Their brutality and darkness, their particular fire-all this drew breath and hissed in the empty night.

Only the cars lining the gravel drive, the cars parked in the open garages in long rows, betrayed the modern age. Even the wires and cables ran underground.

He walked through the trees, and then up close to the foundations and along the stones, searching for the doors he remembered. He wore no suit or coat now, but only simple clothes, long workman’s pants of brown corduroy and a thick sweater made from wool, the favorite of seamen.

The house seemed to grow to immense size as he approached it. Sprinkled throughout were weak and lonely lights, but lights nevertheless. Scholars in their cells.

Through a series of small barred windows he saw a cellar kitchen. Two lady cooks in white were setting aside the kneaded bread to let it rise. And white flour covered their hands and the pale wood of the counter. The smell of coffee came up to him from this room-very rich and fresh. There had been a door … a door for deliveries and such. He walked along, out of the helpful illumination of the windows, feeling the stone wall with his hands, and then coming to a door, though it was one that had not been lately used, and it seemed quite impassable.

It was worth a try. And he had come equipped. Perhaps it was not wired with alarms as any door of his own would have been. Indeed, it looked neglected and forlorn and when he studied it, he saw that it had no lock at all, but merely old hinges, very rusted, and a simple latch.

To his amazement, it opened to his touch, and made a yawning creak that startled him and unnerved him. There was a stone passage and a small stairway leading upwards. Fresh foot tracks on the stairs. A gush of warm and faintly stale air, the indoor air of winter.

He entered and pushed the door closed. A light leaked down the stairs from above, illuminating a carefully written sign that said DO NOT LEAVE THIS DOOR OPEN.

Obediently, he made sure that it was shut and then turned and made his way upwards, emerging into a large, darkly paneled corridor.

This was the hall he remembered. He walked along, not trying to hide the sound of his tennis shoes or to conceal himself in the shadows. Here was the formal library he remembered-not the deep archive of priceless and crumbling records, but the daily reading room, with long oak tables and comfortable chairs, and heaps of magazines from throughout the world, and a dead fireplace, still warm beneath his foot, with a few scattered embers still glowing among its charred logs and ashes.

He had thought the room was empty, but on closer inspection he saw an old man dozing in a chair, a heavyset individual with a bald head and small glasses on the end of his nose, a handsome robe over his shirt and trousers.

It would not do to begin here. An alarm could be too easily sounded. He backed out of the room, careful to be silent this time and feeling lucky that he had not waked this man, and then he went on to a large stairway.

Bedchambers began on the third floor in olden times. Would it be the same now? He went all the way up. It was certainly likely.

When he reached the end of the corridor on the third floor, he turned down another small hall and spied light beneath a door, and decided upon that as his beginning.

Without knocking, he turned the knob and let himself into a small but elegant bedroom. The sole occupant was a woman with gray hair, who looked up from her desk with obvious but fearless amazement.

This was just what he had hoped for. He approached the desk.

There was a book open there under her left hand, and with her right she’d been underlining words in it.

It was Boethius. De topicis differentiis. And she had underlined the sentence, “Syllogism is discourse in which, when certain things have been laid down and agreed to, something other than the things agreed to must result by means of the things agreed to.”

He laughed. “Excuse me,” he said to the woman.

She was looking up at him, and had not moved at all since he entered.

“It’s true but it’s funny, isn’t it? I had forgotten.”

“Who are you?” she asked.

The gravel in her voice, the age of it perhaps, startled him. Her gray hair was heavy and worn in an old-fashioned bun on the back of her head rather than the sexless bob of the present fashion.

“I’m being rude, I know,” he said. “I always know when I’m being rude, and I beg your pardon.”

“Who are you?” she asked again in almost precisely the same tone of voice as before, except that she put a space after each word for emphasis.

“What am I?” he asked. “That’s the more important question. Do you know what I am?”

“No,” she said. “Should I?”

“I don’t know. Look at my hands. See how long and thin they are.”

“Delicate,” she said in the same gravelly voice, her eyes moving only very quickly to his hands and then back to his face. “Why have you come in here?”

“My methods are those of a child,” he said. “That is my only way of operating.”

“So?”

“Did you know that Aaron Lightner was dead?”

She held his gaze for a moment and then slipped back in her chair, her right hand releasing the green marker. She looked away. It was a dreadful revelation to her.

“Who told you?” she asked. “Does everyone know?”

“Apparently not,” he said.

“I knew he wouldn’t come back,” she said. She pursed her mouth so that the heavy lines above her lips were very defined and dark for a moment. “Why have you come here to tell me this?”

“To see what you would say. To know whether or not you had a hand in killing him.”

“What?”

“You heard what I said, did you not?”

“Killing him?” She rose slowly from her chair and gave him a cruel look, especially now that she realized how very tall he was. She looked to the door-indeed, she seemed about ready to move towards it-but he lifted his hand, gently, asking for her patience.

She weighed this gesture.

“You’re saying Aaron was killed by someone?” she asked. Her brows grew heavy and wrinkled over the silver frames of her glasses.

“Yes. Killed. Deliberately run over by a car. Dead.”

The woman closed her eyes this time, as if, unable to leave, she would allow herself to feel this appropriately. She looked straight ahead, dully, with no thought of him standing there, apparently, and then she looked up.

“The Mayfair witches!” she said in a harsh, deep whisper. “God, why did he go there?”

“I don’t think it was the witches who did it,” he said.

“Then who?”

“Someone from here, from the Order.”

“You don’t mean what you’re saying! You don’t know what you’re saying. No one of us would do such a thing.”

“Indeed I do know what I’m saying,” he said. “Yuri, the gypsy, said it was one of you, and Yuri wouldn’t lie in such a matter. Yuri tells no lies as far as I can tell, none whatsoever.”

“Yuri. You’ve seen Yuri. You know where he is?”

“Don’t you?”

“No. One night he left, that’s all anyone knows. Where is he?”

“He is safe, though only by accident. The same villains who killed Aaron have tried to kill him. They had to.”

“Why?”

“You’re innocent of all this?” He was satisfied.

“Yes! Wait, where are you going?”

“Out, to find the killers. Show me the way to the Superior General. I used to know the way, but things change. I must see him.”

She didn’t wait to be asked twice. She sped past him and beckoned for him to follow. Her thick heels made a loud sound on the polished floor as she marched down the corridor, her gray head bowed, and her hands swinging naturally at her sides.

It seemed forever that they walked, until they had reached the very opposite end of the main corridor. The double doors. He remembered them. Only in former times they had not been cleaned and polished to such a luster. They’d been layered with old oil.

She pounded on the door. She might wake the entire house. But he knew no other way to do this.

When the door opened, she went inside, and then turned very pointedly to reveal to the man within that she was with another.

The man within looked out warily, and when he saw Ash, his face was transformed from amazement to shock and immediate secrecy.

“You know what I am, don’t you?” said Ash softly.

He quickly forced his way into the room and closed the doors behind him. It was a large office with an adjoining bedroom. Things were vaguely messy, lamps scattered and dim, fireplace empty.

The woman was watching him with the same ferocious look. The man had backed up as if to get clear of something dangerous.

“Yes, you know,” said Ash. “And you know that they killed Aaron Lightner.”

The man was not surprised, only deeply alarmed. He was large and heavily built, but in good health, and he had the air of an outraged general who knows that he is in danger. He did not even try to pretend to be surprised. The woman saw it.

“I didn’t know they were going to do it. They said you were dead, you’d been destroyed.”

“I?”

The man backed up. The man was now in terror. “I was not the one who gave the order to kill Aaron. I don’t even know the purpose of the order, or why they wanted you here. I know next to nothing.”

“What does all this mean, Anton?” the woman asked. “Who is this person?”

“Person. Person. What an inappropriate word,” said the man called Anton. “You’re looking at something that …”

“Tell me what part you played in it,” Ash said.

“None!” he said. “I’m the Superior General here. I was sent here to see that the wishes of the Elders were carried out.”

“Regardless of what those wishes were?”

“Who are you to question me?”

“Did you tell your men to bring the Taltos back to you?”

“Yes, but that’s what the Elders told me to do!” said the man. “What are you accusing me of? What have I done that you should come here, demanding answers of me? The Elders picked those men, not I.” The man took a deep breath, all the while studying Ash, studying the small details of his body. “Don’t you realize my position?” the man asked. “If Aaron Lightner’s been harmed, don’t you realize it’s the will of the Elders?”

“You accept this. Does anyone else?”

“No one else knows, and no one is meant to know,” said the man indignantly.

The woman let out a small gasp. Perhaps she hoped that Aaron was not dead after all. Now she knew.

“I have to tell the Elders you’re here,” said the man. “I must report your appearance at once.”

“How will you do that?”

The man gestured to the fax machine on the desk. The office was large. Ash had scarcely noticed. The fax was a plain-paper fax, replete with many glowing lights and trays for paper. The desk was full of drawers. Probably one of these harbored a gun.

“I’m to notify them immediately,” said the man. “You’ll have to excuse me now.”

“I don’t think so,” said Ash. “You are corrupt. You are no good. I can see this. You sent men from the Order to do harm.”

“I was told by the Elders.”

“Told? Or paid?”

The man was silent. In a panic he looked to the woman. “Call for help,” he said. He looked at Ash. “I said they were to bring you back. What happened was not my doing. The Elders said I was to come here and do what I had to do, at all costs.”

Once again, the woman was visibly shocked. “Anton,” she said in a whisper. She didn’t move to pick up the phone.

“I give you one final chance,” said Ash, “to tell me something that will prevent me from killing you.” This was a lie. He realized it as soon as the words were out of his mouth, but on the other hand, perhaps the man would say something.

“How dare you!” said the man. “I have but to raise my voice and help will come to me.”

“Then do it!” said Ash. “These walls are thick. But you should try it.”

“Vera, call for help!” he cried.

“How much did they pay you?” asked Ash.

“You know nothing about it.”

“Ah, but I do. You know what I am, but very little else. Your conscience is decrepit and useless. And you’re afraid of me. And you lie. Yes, you lie. In all probability you were very easy to corrupt. You were offered advancement and money, and so you cooperated with something you knew to be evil.”

He looked at the woman, who was plainly horrified.

“This has happened before in your Order,” he said.

“Get out of here!” said the man. He cried out for help, his voice sounding very big in the closed room. He cried again, louder.

“I intend to kill you,” said Ash.

The woman cried, “Wait.” She had her hands out. “You can’t do things this way. There’s no need. If some deliberate harm came to Aaron, then we must call the Council immediately. The house is filled this time of year with senior members. Call the Council now. I’ll go with you.”

“You can call them when I am gone. You are innocent. I don’t intend to kill you. But you, Anton, your cooperation was necessary for what took place. You were bought, why don’t you admit this to me? Who bought you? Your orders did not come from the Elders.”

“Yes, they did.”

The man tried to dart away. Ash reached out, easily catching hold of the man due to the uncommon length of his arms, and he wrapped his fingers very tightly around the man’s throat, more tightly perhaps than a human being could have done. He began to squeeze the life out of the man, doing it as rapidly as he could, hoping his strength was sufficient to break the man’s neck, but it wasn’t.

The woman had backed away. She’d snatched up the telephone and was now speaking into it frantically. The man’s face was red, eyes bulging. As he lost consciousness, Ash squeezed tighter and tighter until he was very sure the man was dead, and would not rise from the floor gasping for breath, as it sometimes happened. He let the man drop.

The woman dropped the telephone receiver.

“Tell me what happened!” she cried. It was almost a scream. “Tell me what happened to Aaron! Who are you?”

Ash could hear people running in the hallway.

“Quickly, I need the number through which I can reach the Elders.”

“I can’t give you that,” she said. “That’s known only to us.”

“Madam, don’t be foolish. I have just killed this man. Do as I ask you.” She didn’t move.

“Do it for Aaron,” he said, “and for Yuri Stefano.” She stared at the desk, her hand rising to her lips, and then she snatched up a pen, wrote something fast on a piece of white paper, and thrust it towards him.

There was a pounding on the double doors.

He looked at the woman. There was no time to talk further.

He turned and opened the doors, to face a large group of men and women who had only just come to a halt, to range round him and look at him.

Here were some who were old and others quite young, five women, four men, and a boy very tall, but still almost beardless. The old gentleman from the library stood among them.

He closed the doors behind him, hoping to delay the woman.

“Do you-any of you-know who I am?” Ash asked. Quickly he looked from face to face, eyes darting back and forth until he was certain he had memorized the features of each person. “Do you know what I am? Answer me, please, if you know.”

Not a single one gave him anything but a puzzled expression. He could hear the lady crying inside the room, a thick, heavy sobbing rather like her speaking voice, roughened with age.

Alarm was now spreading through the group. Another young man had arrived.

“We have to go in,” said one of the women. “We have to see what’s happened inside.”

“But do you know me? You!” Ash spoke to the latecomer now. “Do you know what I am and why I might have come here?”

None of them did. None of them knew anything. Yet they were people of the Order, scholars all, not a service person among them. Men and women in the prime of life.

The woman in the room behind him tugged at the knobs of the doors, then flung them open. Ash stepped to the side.

“Aaron Lightner’s dead!” she cried. “Aaron’s been murdered.”

There were gasps, small cries of dismay and surprise. But all around, there was innocence. The old man from the library looked mortally wounded by this news. Innocent.

It was time to get away.

Ash pushed through the loose gathering quickly and decisively and made for the stairs, going down two by two before anyone followed. The woman screamed for them to stop him, to not let him escape. But he had too good a head start, and his legs were so much longer than theirs.

He reached the side exit before his pursuers found the top of the little stairway.

He went out into the night and walked fast across the wet grass, and then, glancing back, began to run. He ran until he had reached the iron fence, which he easily vaulted, and then he walked up to his car and made a hasty gesture for his driver to open the door for him and then take off out of here.

He sat back as the car moved faster and faster on the open highway.

He read the fax number written by the woman on a piece of paper. It was a number outside of England, and if memory served him right, it was in Amsterdam.

He pulled loose the phone hooked beside him on the wall of the car, and he punched in the number for the long-distance operator.

Yes, Amsterdam.

He memorized the number, or tried to, at least, and then he folded the paper and put it into his pocket.

When he returned to the hotel, he wrote down the fax number, ordered supper, then bathed at once, and watched patiently as the hotel waiters laid out for him a large meal on a linen-draped table. His assistants, including the pretty young Leslie, stood anxiously by.

“You’re to find me another place of residence as soon as it’s daybreak,” he told Leslie. “A hotel as fine as this one, but something much larger. I need an office and several lines. Come back for me only when everything is arranged.”

The young Leslie seemed overjoyed to be so commissioned and empowered, and off she went with the others in tow. He dismissed the waiters, and began to consume the meal of sumptuous pasta in cream sauce, lots of cold milk, and the meat of a lobster, which he did not like, but which was, nevertheless, white.

Afterwards he lay on the sofa, quietly listening to the crackling of the fire and hoping perhaps for a gentle rainfall.

He also hoped that Yuri would return. It wasn’t likely. But he had insisted they remain here at Claridge’s on the chance that Yuri would trust them again.

At last Samuel came in, so drunk that he staggered. His tweed jacket was slung over his shoulder, and his white shirt was rumpled. Only now did Ash see that the shirt was specially made, as the suit had been, to fit Samuel’s grotesque body.

Samuel lay down by the fire, awkward as a whale. Ash got up, gathered some soft pillows from the couch, and put them beneath Samuel’s head. The dwarf opened his eyes, wider than usual, it seemed. His breath was fragrant from drink. His breath came in snorts, but none of this repelled Ash, who had always loved Samuel.

On the contrary, he might have argued to anyone in the world that Samuel had a rocklike, carven beauty, but what would have been the use?

“Did you find Yuri?” Samuel asked.

“No,” said Ash, who remained down on one knee, so that he could speak to Samuel almost in a whisper. “I didn’t look for him, Samuel. Where would I begin in all of London?”

“Aye, there is no beginning and no end,” said Samuel with a deep and forlorn sigh. “I looked wherever I went. Pub to pub to pub. I fear he’ll try to go back. They’ll try to kill him.”

“He has many allies now,” said Ash. “And one of his enemies is dead. The entire Order has been alerted. This must be good for Yuri. I have killed their Superior General.”

“Why in the name of God did you do that?” Samuel forced himself up on his elbow and struggled to gain an upright position, but Ash had finally to help him.

Samuel sat there with his knees bent, scowling at Ash.

“Well, I did it because the man was corrupt and a liar. There cannot be corruption in the Talamasca that isn’t dangerous. And he knew what I was. He believed me to be Lasher. He pleaded the Elders as his cause when I threatened his life. No loyal member would have mentioned the Elders to anyone outside, or said things that were so defensive and obvious.”

“And you killed him.”

“With my hands, the way I always do. It was quick. He didn’t suffer much, and I saw many others. None of them knew what I was. So what can one say? The corruption is near the top, perhaps at the very top, and has not by any means penetrated to the rank and file. If it has, it has penetrated in some confused form. They do not know a Taltos when they see one, even when given ample opportunity to study the specimen.”

“Specimen,” said Samuel. “I want to go back to the glen.”

“Don’t you want to help me, so that the glen remains safe, so that your revolting little friends can dance and play the pipes, and kill unsuspecting humans and boil the fat from their bones in cauldrons?”

“You have a cruel tongue.”

“Do I? Perhaps so.”

“What will we do now?”

“I don’t know the next step. If Yuri hasn’t returned by morning, I suppose that we should leave here.”

“But I like Claridge’s,” Samuel grumbled. He keeled over, eyes closing the moment he hit the pillow.

“Samuel, refresh my memory,” Ash said.

“About what?”

“What is a syllogism?”

Samuel laughed. “Refresh your memory? You never knew what a syllogism was. What do you know about philosophy?”

“Too much,” said Ash. He tried to remember it himself. All men are beasts. Beasts are savage. Therefore all men are savage.

He went into the bedroom and lay down on the bed. For one moment, he saw again the pretty-haired witch, Yuri’s beloved. He imagined that her naked breasts were pressed gently against his face, and that her hair covered them both like a great mantle.

Then he was fast asleep. He dreamed he was walking through the doll museum in his building. The marble tile had just been polished, and he could see all the many colors, and how colors changed depending upon what color was right beside them. All the dolls in their glass cases began to sing-the modern, the antique, the grotesque, the beautiful. The French dolls danced, and swung their little bell-shaped dresses as they did so, their round little faces full of glee, and the magnificent Bru dolls, his queens, his most treasured queens, sang high soprano, their paperweight eyes glistening in the fluorescent lights. Never had he heard such music. He was so happy.

Make dolls that can sing, he thought in his dream, dolls that can really sing-not like the old ones that were bad mechanical toys, but dolls with electronic voices that will sing forever. And when the world ends, the dolls will still sing in the ruins.