Taltos

Three

HE HAD PROMISED the little man he would enter the hotel moments after. “You come with me,” Samuel had said, “and everyone will see you. Now keep the sunglasses on your face.”

Yuri had nodded. He didn’t mind sitting in the car for the moment, watching people walk past the elegant front doors of Claridge’s. Nothing had comforted him so much since he’d left the glen of Donnelaith as the city of London.

Even the long drive south with Samuel, tunneling through the night on freeways that might have been anywhere in the world, had unnerved him.

As for the glen, it was vivid in his memory and thoroughly gruesome. What had made him think it was wise to go there alone-to seek at the very roots for some knowledge of the Little People and the Taltos? Of course he had found exactly what he wanted. And been shot in the shoulder by a.38-caliber bullet in the process.

The bullet had been an appalling shock. He’d never been wounded before in such a fashion. But the truly unnerving revelation had been the Little People.

Slumped in the back of the Rolls, he suffered again a vivid memory of that sight-the night with its heavy rolling clouds and haunting moon, the mountain path wildly overgrown, and the eerie sound of the drums and the horns rising against the cliffs.

Only when he had seen the little men in their circle had he realized they were singing. Only then had he heard their baritone chants, their words thoroughly unrecognizable to him.

He wasn’t sure he had believed in them until then-

Round in the circle they went, stunted, humpbacked, lifting their short knees, rocking back and forth, giving forth rhythmic bursts in the chants, some drinking from mugs, others from bottles. They wore their gunbelts over their shoulders. They fired their pistols into the great windy night with the riotous hilarity of savages. The guns did not roar. Rather they went off in tight bursts, like firecrackers. Worse, by far, were the drums, the awful pounding drums, and the few pipes whining and struggling with their gloomy melody.

When the bullet struck him, he thought it had come from one of them-a sentry perhaps. He had been wrong.

Three weeks had passed before he’d left the glen.

Now Claridge’s. Now the chance to call New Orleans, to speak to Aaron, to speak with Mona, to explain why for so long he’d been silent.

As for the risk of London, as for the proximity of the Talamasca Motherhouse and those who were trying to kill him, he felt infinitely safer here than he had in the glen only moments before the bullet had knocked him on his face.

Time to go upstairs. To see this mysterious friend of Samuel’s, who had already arrived, and who had not been described or explained to Yuri. Time to do what the little man wanted because the little man had saved Yuri’s life, nursed him back to health, and wanted him to meet this friend who had, in this great drama, some mammoth significance.

Yuri climbed out of the car, the genial British doorman quickly coming to his assistance.

His shoulder ached; there was a sharp pain. When would he learn not to use his right arm! Maddening.

The cold air was fierce but momentary. He went directly into the lobby of the hotel-so vast, yet warm. He took the great curving staircase to his right.

The soft strains of a string quartet came from the nearby bar. The air was still all around him. The hotel calmed him and made him feel safe. It also made him feel happy.

What a wonder it was that all of these polite Englishmen-the doorman, the bellhops, the kindly gentleman coming down the stairs past him-took no visible notice of his dirty sweater or his soiled black pants. Too polite, he mused.

He walked along the second floor until he came to the door of the corner suite, which the little man had described to him, and finding the door open, he entered a small, inviting alcove rather like that of a gracious home, and which looked into a large parlor, dowdy yet luxurious as the little man had said it would be.

The little man was on his knees, piling wood into the fireplace. He had taken off his tweed jacket, and the white shirt pulled painfully over his stunted arms and hump.

“There, there, come in here, Yuri,” he said, without so much as looking up.

Yuri stepped into the doorway. The other man was there.

And this man was as strange to behold as the little man, but in an entirely different fashion. He was outrageously tall, though not impossibly so. He had pale white skin and dark, rather natural-looking hair. The hair was long and free and out of keeping with the man’s fine black wool suit and the dull sheen of the expensive white shirt that he wore, and his dark red tie. He looked decidedly romantic. But what did this mean? Yuri wasn’t sure. Yet it was the word that came to his mind. The man did not look decisively athletic-he was not one of those freakish sports giants who excel in televised Olympic games or on noisy basketball courts-rather he looked romantic.

Yuri met the man’s gaze with no trouble. There was nothing menacing in this extraordinary and rather formal figure. Indeed, his face was smooth and young, almost pretty for a man, with its long, thick eyelashes and full, gently shaped androgynous lips-and not intimidating. Only the white in his hair gave him an air of authority, which he clearly did not regularly enforce. His eyes were hazel and rather large, and they looked at Yuri wonderingly. It was altogether an impressive figure, except for the hands. The hands were a little too big, and there was an abnormality about the fingers, though Yuri wasn’t sure what it was. Spidery thin they were, maybe that was the sum of it.

“You’re the gypsy,” said the man in a low, pleasing voice that was almost a little sensual and very unlike the caustic baritone of the dwarf.

“Come inside, sit down,” said the dwarf impatiently. He had now lighted the fire and was fanning it with the bellows. “I sent for something to eat, but I want you to go into the bedroom when they bring it, I don’t want you seen.”

“Thank you,” said Yuri quietly. He realized suddenly that he’d failed to remove his dark glasses. How bright the room was suddenly, even with its deep green velvet furniture and old-fashioned flowered curtains. An agreeable room, with the imprint of people upon it.

Claridge’s. He knew the hotels of the world, but he had never known Claridge’s. He had never lodged in London except at the Motherhouse, to which he could not go now.

“You’re wounded, my friend told me,” said the tall man, approaching him and looking down at him in such a kindly way that the man’s height aroused no instinctive fear. The spidery hands were raised and extended as if, in order to see Yuri’s face, the man had to frame it.

“I’m all right. It was a bullet, but your friend removed it. I would be dead if it wasn’t for your friend.”

“So he’s told me. Do you know who I am?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Do you know what a Taltos is? That is what I am.”

Yuri said nothing. He had no more suspected this than he had suspected that the Little People really existed. Taltos has meant Lasher-killer, monster, menace. He was too shocked to speak. He merely stared at the man’s face, thinking that the man looked to be no more and no less, except for the hands, than a giant human.

“For the love of God, Ash,” said the dwarf, “have some guile for once.” He brushed off his pants. The fire was vigorous and splendid. He seated himself in a soft, rather shapeless chair that looked extremely comfortable. His feet didn’t touch the ground.

It was impossible to read his deeply wrinkled face. Was he really so cross? The folds of flesh destroyed all expression. Indeed, the voice alone carried everything with the little man, who only occasionally made bright wide eyes as he spoke. His red hair was the appropriate cliché for his impatience and his temper. He drummed his short fingers on the cloth arms of the chair.

Yuri walked to the couch and took a stiff place at the very end of it, conscious that the tall one had gone to the mantel and was looking down at the fire. Yuri did not mean to stare rudely at this creature.

“A Taltos,” said Yuri. His voice sounded acceptably calm. “A Taltos. Why do you want to talk to me? Why do you want to help me? Who are you, and why have you come here?”

“You saw the other one?” the tall man asked, turning and looking at Yuri with eyes that were almost shy in their openness, but not quite. This man might have been knock-dead beautiful if it hadn’t been for the hands. The knuckles looked like knots.

“No, I never saw him,” said Yuri.

“But you know for certain he is dead?”

“Yes, I know that for certain,” said Yuri. The giant and the dwarf. He was not going to laugh at this, but it was horribly amusing. This creature’s abnormalities made him pleasing to look at. And the little man’s abnormalities made him seem dangerous and wicked. And it was all an act of nature, was it? It was somewhat beyond the scope of the range of accidents in which Yuri believed.

“Did this Taltos have a mate?” asked the tall one. “I mean another Taltos, a female?”

“No, his mate was a woman named Rowan Mayfair. I told your friend about her. She was his mother, and his lover. She is what we call a witch in the Talamasca.”

“Aye,” said the little man, “and what we would call a witch as well. There are many powerful witches in this tale, Ashlar. There is a brood of witches. You have to let the man tell his story.”

“Ashlar, that’s your full name?” asked Yuri. It had been a jolt.

For hours before he’d left New Orleans, he had listened to Aaron summarize the tale of Lasher, the demon from the glen. St. Ashlar-that name had been spoken over and over again. St. Ashlar.

“Yes,” said the tall one. “But Ash is the single-syllable version, which I heartily prefer. I don’t mean to be impolite, but I so prefer the simple name Ash that often I don’t answer to the other.” This was said firmly but with courtesy.

The dwarf laughed. “I call him by his full name to make him strong and attentive,” he said.

The tall one ignored this. He warmed his hands over the fire; with fingers splayed apart, they looked diseased.

“You’re in pain, aren’t you?” the man said, turning away from the fire.

“Yes. Excuse me, please, that I show it. The wound’s in my shoulder, in such a place that every little movement pulls it. Will you forgive me that I slouch back on this sofa, and try to remain like this, looking lazy? My mind is racing. Will you tell me who you are?”

“I’ve done that, have I not?” asked the tall one. “You speak. What happened to you?”

“Yuri, I told you,” said the dwarf, with rather good-natured impatience, “that this is my oldest confidant and friend in the world. I told you that he knew the Talamasca. That he knows more about it than any living being. Please trust him. Tell him what he wants to know.”

“I trust you,” said Yuri. “But to what purpose do I tell you my business, or of my adventures? What will you do with this knowledge?”

“Help you, of course,” said the tall one slowly, with a gentle nod of his head. “Samuel says the men in the Talamasca are trying to kill you. This is hard for me to accept. I have always, in my own way, loved the Order of the Talamasca. I protect myself from it, as I do from anything which would constrict me in any way. But the men of the Talamasca have seldom been my enemies … at least not for very long. Who tried to hurt you? Are you sure these evil people came from the Order itself?”

“No, I’m not sure,” said Yuri. “This is what happened, more or less. When I was an orphan boy, the Talamasca took me in. Aaron Lightner was the man who did it. Samuel knows who this man is.”

“So do I,” said the tall one.

“All my adult life I’ve served the Order, in a traveling capacity mostly, often performing tasks which I myself don’t fully understand. Apparently, unbeknownst to me, my vows rested upon a loyalty to Aaron Lightner. When he went to New Orleans to investigate a family of witches, things somehow went wrong. This family was the Mayfair family, this family of witches. I read their history in old records of the Order before these records were closed to me. It was from Rowan Mayfair that the Taltos was born.”

“Who or what was the father?” asked the tall one.

“It was a man.”

“A mortal man. You’re certain of this?”

“Without question, but there were other considerations. This family had been haunted for many, many generations by a spirit, both evil and good. This spirit took hold of the infant inside Rowan Mayfair, took possession of it and assisted its unusual birth. The Taltos, springing up full-grown from this woman, possessed the soul of the haunting spirit complete and entire. They called this creature Lasher in the family. I’ve never known any other name for him. Now this creature is dead, as I’ve told you.”

The tall man was frankly amazed. He gave a little sympathetic shake of his head. He walked to the nearby armchair and sat down, turning politely towards Yuri, and crossing his long legs and ankles very much as Yuri had done. He sat very straight, as though never ashamed or uneasy about his height.

“From two witches!” said the tall one in a whisper.

“Absolutely,” said Yuri.

“You say absolutely,” said the tall one. “What can this mean?”

“There is genetic evidence, an abundance of it. The Talamasca has this evidence. The witch family carries an extraordinary set of genes within its various lines. Genes of the Taltos, which under the ordinary circumstances are never switched on by nature, but which in this case-either through witchcraft or possession-did indeed do their work to make the Taltos come into the world.”

The tall man smiled. It surprised Yuri, because the smile so fired the face with expression and affection and simple delight.

“You speak like all the men from the Talamasca,” said the tall one. “You speak like a priest in Rome. You speak as if you weren’t born in these times.”

“Well, I was educated on their documents in Latin,” said Yuri. “Their story of this creature, Lasher, it went back to the sixteen hundreds. I read all of it, along with the story of this family-its rise to great wealth and power, its secret doings with this spirit, Lasher. And I have of course read a hundred such files.”

“Have you?”

“Not stories of the Taltos,” said Yuri, “if that’s what you mean. I never heard the word until I was in New Orleans-until two members of the Order were killed there, trying to free this Taltos, Lasher, from the man who killed him. But I cannot tell that tale.”

“Why? I want to know who killed him.”

“When I know you better, when you’ve matched my confessions with your own.”

“What can I confess? I’m Ashlar. I’m a Taltos. It’s centuries since I’ve seen one single other member of my own species. Oh, there have been others. I’ve heard tell of them, chased after them, and in some instances almost found them. Mark, I say almost. But not in centuries have I touched my own flesh and blood, as humans are so fond of saying. Never in all this time.”

“You’re very old, that’s what you’re telling me. Our lifespan is nothing compared to yours.”

“Well, apparently not,” said the man. “I must be old. I have this white hair now, as you see. But then how am I to know how old I am, and what my decline may be, and how long it will take in human years? When I lived in happiness among my own, I was too young to learn what I would need for this long, lonely voyage. And God did not gift me with a supernatural memory. Like an ordinary man, I remember some things with haunting clarity; others are completely erased.”

“The Talamasca knows about you?” asked Yuri. “It’s crucial that you tell me. The Talamasca was my vocation.”

“Explain how this changed.”

“As I told you, Aaron Lightner went to New Orleans. Aaron is an expert on witches. We study witches.”

“Understood,” said the dwarf. “Get on with it.”

“Hush, Samuel, mind your manners,” said the tall one softly but seriously.

“Don’t be an imbecile, Ash, this gypsy is falling in love with you!”

The Taltos was shocked and outraged. The anger flared in him beautifully and fully, and then be shook his head and folded his arms as if he knew how to deal with such anger.

As for Yuri, he was again stunned. It seemed the way of the world now-outrageous shocks and revelations. He was stunned and hurt because he had in some way warmed to this being far beyond the ways in which he’d warmed to the little man, which were, in the main, more intellectual.

He looked away, humiliated. He had no time now to tell the story of his own life-how he had fallen so totally under the dominance of Aaron Lightner, and the force and power which strong men often exerted over him. He wanted to say this was not erotic. But it was erotic, insofar as anything and everything is.

The Taltos was staring coldly at the little man.

Yuri resumed his story.

“Aaron Lightner went to help the Mayfair witches in their endless battles with the spirit Lasher. Aaron Lightner never knew whence this spirit came, or what it really was. That a witch had called it up in Donnelaith in the year 1665-that was known, but not much else about it.

“After the creature was made flesh, after it had caused the deaths of too many witches for me to count-only after all this did Aaron Lightner see the creature and learn from its own lips that it was the Taltos, and that it had lived in a body before, in the time of King Henry, meeting its death in Donnelaith, the glen which it haunted until the witch called it up.

“These things are not in any Talamasca file known to me. Scarcely three weeks have passed since the creature was slaughtered. But these things may be in secret files known to someone. Once the Talamasca learnt that Lasher had been reincarnated, or whatever in the name of God we should call it, they moved in on him and sought to remove him for their own purposes. They may have coldly and deliberately taken several lives in the process. I don’t know. I know that Aaron had no part in their schemes, and felt betrayed by them. That is why I’m asking you: Do they know about you? Are you part of the Talamasca knowledge, because if you are, it is highly occult knowledge.”

“Yes and no,” said the tall one. “You don’t tell lies at all, do you?”

“Ash, try not to say strange things,” grumbled the dwarf. He too had sat back, letting his short, stumpy legs stretch out perfectly straight. He had knitted his fingers on his tweed vest, and his shirt was open at the neck. A bit of light flashed in his hooded eyes.

“I was merely remarking on it, Samuel. Have some patience.” The tall man sighed. “Try not to say such strange things yourself.” He looked a little annoyed and then his eyes returned to Yuri.

“Let me answer your question, Yuri,” he said. The way he had spoken the name was warm and casual. “Men in the Talamasca today probably know nothing of me. It would take a genius to unearth what tales of us are told in Talamasca archives, if indeed such documents still exist. I never fully understood the status or the significance of this knowledge-the Order’s files, as they call them now. I read some manuscript once, centuries ago, and laughed and laughed at the words in it. But in those times all written language seemed naive and touching to me. Some of it still does.”

To Yuri, this was a fascinating point. The dwarf had been right, of course; he was falling under the sway of this being, he had lost his healthy reluctance to trust, but that was what this sort of love was about, wasn’t it? Divesting oneself so totally of the customary feelings of alienation and distrust that the subsequent acceptance was intellectually orgasmic.

“What sort of language doesn’t make you laugh?” asked Yuri.

“Modern slang,” said the tall one. “Realism in fiction, and journalism which is filled with colloquialisms. It often lacks naiveté completely. It has lost all formality, and instead abides by an intense compression. When people write now, it is sometimes like the screech of a whistle compared to the songs they used to sing.”

Yuri laughed. “I think you’re right,” he said. “Not so the documents of the Talamasca, however.”

“No. As I was explaining, they are melodic and amusing.”

“But then there are documents and documents. So you don’t think they know about you now.”

“I’m fairly certain they don’t know about me, and as you tell your tale, it becomes very clear that they cannot possibly know about me. But go on. What happened to this Taltos?”

“They tried to take him away, and they died in the process. The man who killed the Taltos killed these men from the Talamasca. Before they died, however, when these men were seeking to take the Taltos into their custody, you might say, they indicated that they had a female Taltos, that they had for centuries sought to bring the male and the female together. They indicated it was the avowed purpose of the Order. The clandestine and occult purpose, I should say. This was demoralizing to Aaron Lightner.”

“I can see why.”

Yuri went on.

“The Taltos, Lasher, he seemed unsurprised by all this; he seemed to have figured it out. Even in his earlier incarnation, the Talamasca had tried to take him out of Donnelaith, perhaps to mate him with the female. But he didn’t trust them and he didn’t go with them. He was a priest in those days. He was believed to be a saint.”

“St. Ashlar,” said the dwarf more soberly, the voice seeming to rumble not from the wrinkles of his face but from his heavy trunk. “St. Ashlar, who always comes again.”

The tall one bowed his head slightly, his deep hazel eyes moving slowly back and forth across the carpet, almost as if he were reading the rich Oriental design. He looked up at Yuri, head bowed, so that his dark brows shadowed his eyes.

“St. Ashlar,” he said in a sad voice. “Are you this man?”

“I’m no saint, Yuri. Do you mind that I call you by name? Let’s not speak of saints, if you please….”

“Oh, please do call me Yuri. And I will call you Ash? But the point is, are you this same individual? This one they called the saint? You speak of centuries! And we sit here in this parlor, and the fire crackles, and the waiter taps at the door now with our refreshments. You must tell me. I can’t protect myself from my own brothers in the Talamasca if you don’t tell me and help me to understand what’s going on.”

Samuel slipped off the chair and proceeded towards the alcove. “Go into the bedroom, please, Yuri. Out of sight now.” He swaggered as he went past Yuri.

Yuri rose, the shoulder hurting him acutely for a moment, and he walked into the bedroom, closing the door behind him. He found himself in a shadowy stillness, with soft, loose curtains filtering the subdued morning light. He picked up the telephone; quickly he punched the direct-dial number, followed by the country code for the United States.

Then he hesitated, feeling wholly unable to tell the protective lies that he would have to tell to Mona, eager to speak to Aaron and tell him what he knew, and half afraid he would be momentarily stopped from calling anyone.

Several times on the drive down from Scotland, he had found himself at public phones, experiencing the same dilemma, when the dwarf had commanded him to get in the car now.

What to tell his little love? How much to tell Aaron in the few moments he might have to speak with him?

In haste, he punched in the area code for New Orleans, and the number of the Mayfair house on St. Charles and Amelia, and he waited, a little worried suddenly that it might be the very middle of the night in America, and then realizing suddenly that indeed it was.

Rude and terrible mistake, whatever the circumstances. Someone had answered. It was a voice he knew but could not place.

“I’m calling from England. I’m so sorry. I’m trying to reach Mona Mayfair,” he said. “I hope I haven’t waked the house.”

“Yuri?” asked the woman.

“Yes!” he confessed without obvious surprise that this woman had recognized his voice.

“Yuri, Aaron Lightner’s dead,” said the woman. “This is Celia, Beatrice’s cousin. Mona’s cousin. Everybody’s cousin. Aaron’s been killed.”

There was a long pause in which Yuri did nothing. He didn’t think or visualize anything or rush to any conclusion. His body was caught in a cold, terrible fear-fear of the implications of these words, that he would never, never see Aaron again, that they would never speak to each other, that he and Aaron-that Aaron was forever gone.

When he tried to move his lips, he found trouble. He did some senseless and stupid little thing with his hand, pinching the telephone cord.

“I’m sorry, Yuri. We’ve been worried about you. Mona’s been very worried. Where are you? Can you call Michael Curry? I can give you the number.”

“I’m all right,” Yuri answered softly. “I have that number.”

“That’s where Mona is now, Yuri. Up at the other house. They will want to know where you are and how you are, and how to reach you immediately.”

“But Aaron …” he said, pleadingly, unable to say more. His voice sounded puny to him, barely escaping the burden of the tremendous emotions that even clouded his vision and his equilibrium, his entire sense of who he was. “Aaron …”

“He was run over, deliberately, by a man in a car. He was walking down from the Pontchartrain Hotel, where he’d just left Beatrice with Mary Jane Mayfair. They were putting Mary Jane Mayfair up at the hotel. Beatrice was just about to go into the lobby of the hotel when she heard the noise. She and Mary Jane witnessed what happened. Aaron was run over by the car several times.”

“Then it was murder,” said Yuri.

“Absolutely. They caught the man who did it. A drifter. He was hired, but he doesn’t know the identity of the man who hired him. He got five thousand dollars in cash for killing Aaron. He’d been trying to do it for a week. He’d spent half the money.”

Yuri wanted to put down the phone. It seemed utterly impossible to continue. He ran his tongue along his upper lip and then firmly forced himself to speak. “Celia, please tell Mona Mayfair this for me, and Michael Curry too-that I am in England, I am safe. I will soon be in touch. I am being very careful. I send my sympathy to Beatrice Mayfair. I send to all … my love.”

“I’ll tell them.”

He laid down the phone. If she said something more, he didn’t hear it. It was silent now. And the soft pastel colors of the bedroom lulled him for a moment. The light filled the mirror softly and beautifully. All the fragrances of the room were clean.

Alienation, a lack of trust either in happiness or in others. Rome. Aaron coming. Aaron erased from life-not from the past, but utterly from the present and from the future.

He didn’t know how long he stood there.

It began to seem that he had been planted by the dressing table for a long, long time. He knew that Ash, the tall one, had come into the room, but not to detach Yuri from the telephone.

And some deep, awful grief in Yuri was touched suddenly, disastrously perhaps, by the warm, sympathetic voice of this man.

“Why are you crying, Yuri?”

It was said with the purity of a child.

“Aaron Lightner’s dead,” said Yuri. “I never called to tell him they’d tried to kill me. I should have told him. I should have warned him-”

It was the slightly abrasive voice of Samuel that reached him from the door.

“He knew, Yuri. He knew. You told me how he warned you not to come back here, how he said they’d come for him at any time.”

“Ah, but I …”

“Don’t hold on to it with guilt, my young friend,” said Ash.

Yuri felt the big, spidery hands close tenderly on his shoulders.

“Aaron … Aaron was my father,” Yuri said in a monotone. “Aaron was my brother. Aaron was my friend.” Inside him the grief and the guilt boiled and the stark, awful terror of death became unendurable. It doesn’t seem possible that this man is gone, totally gone from life, but it will begin to seem more and more possible, and then real, and then absolute.

Yuri might as well have been a boy again, in his mother’s village in Yugoslavia, standing by her dead body on the bed. That had been the last time he’d known such pain as this; he couldn’t bear it. He clenched his teeth, fearing that in an unmanly way he would cry out or even roar.

“The Talamasca killed him,” said Yuri. “Who else would have done it? Lasher-the Taltos-is dead. He didn’t do it. Lay all the murders upon them. The Taltos killed the women, but he did not kill the men. The Talamasca did it.”

“Was it Aaron who killed the Taltos?” asked Ash. “Was he the father?”

“No. But he did love a woman there, and now perhaps her life too has been destroyed.”

He wanted to lock himself in the bathroom. He had no clear image of what he meant to do. Sit on the marble floor, perhaps, with his knees up, and weep.

But neither of these two strange individuals would hear of it. In concern and alarm, they drew him back into the living room of the suite, and seated him on the sofa, the tall one being most careful not to hurt his shoulder, the little man rushing to prepare some hot tea. And bring him cakes and cookies on a plate. A feeble meal, but a particularly enticing one.

It seemed to Yuri that the fire was burning too fast. His pulse had quickened. Indeed, he felt himself breaking out in a sweat: He took off the heavy sweater, pulling it roughly over his neck, causing intense pain in his shoulder before he realized what he was doing, and before he realized he had nothing on under his sweater and was now sitting here bare-chested, with the sweater in his hands. He sat back and hugged the sweater, uncomfortable to be so uncovered.

He heard a little sound. The little man had brought him a white shirt, still wrapped around laundry cardboard. Yuri took it, opened it, unbuttoned it, and slipped it on. It was absurdly too big for him. It must have belonged to Ash. But he rolled up the sleeves and buttoned several of the buttons and was grateful to be concealed once more. It felt comforting, like a great pajama shirt. The sweater lay on the carpet. He could see the grass in it, the twigs and bits of soil clinging to it.

“And I thought I was so noble,” he said, “not calling him, not worrying him, letting the wound heal and getting back on my feet before I reported in, to confirm to him that I was well.”

“Why would the Talamasca kill Aaron Lightner?” asked Ash. He had retreated to his chair and was sitting with his hands clasped between his knees. Again, he was ramrod straight and unlikely and very handsome.

Good Lord, it was as if Yuri had been knocked unconscious, and was seeing all of this again for the first time. He noticed the simple black watchband around Ash’s wrist, and the gold watch itself, with digital numbers. He saw the red-haired hunchback standing at the window, which he had opened a crack now that the fire was positively roaring. He felt the ice blade of the wind cleave through the room. He saw the fire arch its back and hiss.

“Yuri, why?” asked Ash.

“I can’t answer. I had hoped somehow we were mistaken, that they hadn’t had such a heavy hand in all this, that they hadn’t killed innocent men. That it was a fanciful lie or something, that they had the female that they had always wanted. I couldn’t think of such a tawdry purpose. Oh, I don’t mean to offend you-”

“-of course not.”

“I mean, I had thought their aims so lofty, their whole evolution so remarkably pure-an order of scholars who record and study, but never interfere selfishly in what they observe; students of the supernatural. I think I’ve been a fool! They killed Aaron because he knew about all this. And that’s why they must kill me. They must let the Order sink back into its routines, undisturbed by all this. They must be watching at the Motherhouse. They must be anxious to prevent me entering it at all costs. They must have the phones covered. I couldn’t call there or Amsterdam or Rome if I wanted to. They’d intercept any fax that I sent. They’ll never let down this guard, or stop looking for me, till I’m dead.

“Then who will there be to go after them? To tell the others? To reveal the awful secret to the brothers and sisters that this Order is evil … that the old maxims of the Catholic Church perhaps have always been true. What is supernatural and not of God is evil. To find the male Taltos! To bring him together with the female …”

He looked up. Ash’s face was sad. Samuel, leaning against the closed window, appeared, for all the fleshy folds of his face, sad and concerned as well. Calm yourself, he thought, make your words count. Do not lapse into hysteria.

He went on. “You speak of centuries, Ash,” he said, “the way others speak of years. Then the female within the Talamasca might have lived for centuries. This might have been the only purpose always. Out of dark times, a web spun that is so evil and so perverse that modern men and women can’t even conceive of it! It’s too simple, all of these stupid men and women watching out for one single being-a Taltos, a creature that can breed with its mate so fast and so successfully that its kind would quickly overtake the world. I wonder what makes them so sure of themselves, the invisible and anonymous and secretive Elders of the Order, so sure that they themselves are not being-”

He paused. It had never occurred to him. Of course. Had he ever been in a room with a sentient being who wasn’t human? Now he was, and who was to say how many such species lived in our comfortable little world, walking about, passing for human while servicing their own agenda in every respect? Taltos. Vampire. The aged dwarf, with his own clock and his own grudges and stories.

How quiet they both were. Had there been an unspoken decision to let him rave?

“You know what I would like to do?” Yuri asked. “What?” asked Ash.

“Go to the Amsterdam Motherhouse and kill them, the Elders. But that’s just it, I don’t think I can find them. I don’t think they are in the Amsterdam Motherhouse, or that they ever have been. I don’t know who or what they are. Samuel, I want to take the car now. I have to go home here in London. I have to see the brothers and the sisters.”

“No,” said Samuel. “They’ll kill you.”

“They can’t all be in it. That’s my last hope; we are all dupes of a few. Now, please, I want to take the car outside London to the Motherhouse. I want to walk inside quickly, before anyone is the wiser, and grab hold of the brothers and sisters, and make them listen. Look, I have to do this! I have to warn them. Why, Aaron’s dead!”

He stopped. He realized he’d been frightening them, these two strange friends. The little man had his arms folded again, grotesquely, because they were so short and his chest was so big. The folded flesh of his forehead had descended in a frown. Ash merely watched him, not frowning, but visibly worrying.

“What do you care, either one of you!” said Yuri suddenly. “You saved my life when I was shot in the mountains. But nobody asked you to do this. Why? What am I to you?”

A little noise came from Samuel, as if to say, This is not worth an answer. Ash answered, however, in a tender voice.

“Maybe we are gypsies, too, Yuri,” he said.

Yuri didn’t answer, but he did not believe in the sentiments this man was describing. He didn’t believe in anything, except that Aaron was dead. He pictured Mona, his little red-haired witch. He saw her, her remarkable little face and her great veil of red hair. He saw her eyes. But he could feel nothing for her. He wished with all his heart that she were here.

“Nothing, I have nothing,” he whispered.

“Yuri,” said Ash. “Please mark what I tell you. The Talamasca was not founded to search for the Taltos. This you can believe on my word. And though I know nothing of the Elders of the Order in this day and age, I have known them in the past; and no, Yuri, they were not Taltos then and I cannot believe they are Taltos now. What would they be, Yuri, females of our species?”

The voice went on unhurried and tender still, but profoundly forceful.

“A female Taltos is as willful and childlike as a male,” said Ash. “A female would have gone at once to this creature, Lasher. A female, living only among females, could not have been prevented from doing it. Why send mortal men to capture such a prize and such a foe? Oh, I know to you I don’t seem formidable, but you might be very surprised by my tales. Take comfort: your brothers and your sisters are not dupes of the Order itself. But I believe that you have hit upon the truth in your considerations. It is not the Elders who subverted the avowed purpose of the Talamasca, so that they might capture this creature, Lasher. It was some other small coterie of members who have discovered the secrets of the old breed.”

Ash stopped. It was as if the air had been emptied of music suddenly. Ash was still regarding Yuri with patient, simple eyes.

“You have to be right,” said Yuri softly. “I can’t bear it if you are not.”

“We have it in our power to discover the truth,” said Ash. “The three of us together. And frankly, though I cared for you immediately upon meeting you, and would help because you are a fellow creature, and because my heart is tender to you in general, I must help you for another reason. I can remember when there was no Talamasca. I can remember when it was one man. I can remember when its catacombs enclosed a library no bigger than this room. I can remember when it became two members, and then three, and later five, and then it was ten. I can remember all these things, and those who came together to found it, I knew them and I loved them. And of course my own secret, my own story, is hidden somewhere in their records, these records being translated into modern tongues, and stored electronically.”

“What he’s saying,” said Samuel, harshly but slowly for all his annoyance, “is that we don’t want the Talamasca to be subverted. We don’t want its nature to change. The Talamasca knows too much about us for such a thing to be tolerated. It knows too much about too many things. With me, it’s no matter of loyalty, really. It’s a matter of wanting to be left alone.”

“I do speak of loyalty,” said Ash. “I speak of love and of gratitude. I speak of many things.”

“Yes, I see it now,” said Yuri. He could feel himself growing tired-the inevitable finish to emotional tumult, the inevitable rescue, the leaden, defeated need for sleep.

“If they knew about me,” said Ash in a low voice, “this little group would come for me as surely as they came for this creature, Lasher.” He made a little accepting gesture. “Human beings have done this before. Any great library of secrets is dangerous. Any cache of secrets can be stolen.”

Yuri had started to cry. He didn’t make a sound. The tears never spilled. His eyes filled with water. He stared at the cup of tea. He’d never drunk it, and now it was cold. He took the linen napkin, unfolded it, and wiped his eyes. It was too rough, but he didn’t care. He was hungry for the sweets on the plate, but didn’t want to eat them. After a death, it seemed not proper to eat them.

Ash went on: “I don’t want to be the guardian angel of the Talamasca,” he said. “I never wanted this. But there have been times in the past when the Order has been threatened. I will not, if I can prevent it, see the Order hurt or destroyed.”

“There are many reasons, Yuri,” said Samuel, “why a little band of Talamasca renegades might try to trap this Lasher. Think what a trophy he would be. They are human beings perhaps who would capture a Taltos for no earthly reason. They are not men of science or magic or religion. They are not even scholars. But they would have this rare and indescribable creature; they would have it to look upon, to talk to, to examine and to know, and to breed under their watchful eyes, of course, inevitably.”

“They would have it to chop it to pieces, perhaps,” said Ash. “Lamentably, they would have it to stick it with needles and see if it screamed.”

“Yes, it makes such good sense,” said Yuri. “A plot from outside. Renegades or outsiders. I’m tired. I need to sleep in a bed. I don’t know why I said such terrible things to you both.”

“I do,” said the dwarf. “Your friend’s dead. I wasn’t there to save him.”

“The man who tried to kill you,” Ash said, “did you kill him?”

Samuel gave the answer. “No, I killed him. Not on purpose, really. It was either knock him off the cliff or let him fire another shot at the gypsy. I must confess I did it rather for the hell of it, as Yuri and I hadn’t yet exchanged a single word. Here was this man aiming a gun at another man. The dead man’s body is in the glen. You want to find it? It’s a good chance the Little People left it right where it fell.”

“Ah, it was like that,” said Ash.

Yuri said nothing. Vaguely he knew that he should have found this body. He should have examined it, taken its identifying papers. But that really had not been feasible, given his wound and the awesome terrain. There seemed something just about the body being lost forever in the wilderness of Donnelaith, and about the Little People letting the body rot.

The Little People.

Even as he had fallen, his eyes had been on the spectacle of the tiny men, down in the little pocket of grass far below him, dancing like many twisted modern Rumplestiltskins. The light of the torches had been the last thing he saw before he lost consciousness.

When he’d opened his eyes to see Samuel, his savior, with the gunbelt and pistol, and a face so haggard and old that it seemed a tangle of tree roots, he had thought, They’ve come to kill me. But I’ve seen them. I wish I could tell Aaron. The Little People. I’ve seen them….

“It’s a group from outside the Talamasca,” said Ash, waking him abruptly from the unwelcome spell, pulling him back into this little circle. “Not from within.”

Taltos, thought Yuri, and now I have seen the Taltos. I am in a room with this creature who is the Taltos.

Had the honor of the Order been unblemished, had the pain in his shoulder not been reminding him every moment of the shabby violence and treachery which had engulfed his life, how momentous it would have been to see the Taltos. But then this was the price of such visions, was it not? They always carried a price, Aaron had told him once. And now he could never, never discuss this with Aaron.

Samuel spoke next, a little caustic. “How do you know it’s not a group from within the Talamasca?”

He looked nothing now like he had that night, in his ragged jerkin and breeches. Sitting by the fire, he had looked like a ghastly toad as he counted his bullets and filled the empty spaces in his belt and drank his whiskey and offered it over and over to Yuri. That was the drunkest Yuri had ever been. But it was medicinal, wasn’t it?

“Rumplestiltskin,” Yuri had said. And the little man had said, “You can call me that if you like. I’ve been called worse. But my name is Samuel.”

“What language are they singing in?” When will they stop with the singing, with the drums!

“Our language. Be quiet now. It’s hard for me to count.”

Now the little man was cradled comfortably by the civilized chair, and swaddled in civilized garments, staring eagerly at the miraculous willowy giant, Ash, who took his time to answer.

“Yes,” said Yuri, more to snap himself out of it than anything else. “What makes you think it’s a group from outside?” Forget the chill and the darkness and the drums-the infuriating pain of the bullet.

“It’s too clumsy,” said Ash. “The bullet from a gun. The car jumping the curb and striking Aaron Lightner. There are many easy ways to kill people so that others hardly notice at all. Scholars always know this; they have learnt from studying witches and wizards and other princes of maleficia. No. They would not go into the glen stalking a man as if he were game. It is not possible.”

“Ash, the gun is now the weapon of the glen,” said Samuel derisively. “Why shouldn’t wizards use guns if Little People use them?”

“It’s the toy of the glen, Samuel,” said Ash calmly. “And you know it. The men of the Talamasca are not monsters who are hunted and spied upon and must retreat from the world into a wilderness and, when sighted, strike fear in men’s hearts.” He went on with his reasoning. “It is not from within the Elders of the Talamasca that this menace has arisen. It is the worst nuisance imaginable-some small group of people from outside, who happened upon certain information and chose to believe it. Books, computer disks. Who knows? Perhaps these secrets were even sold to them by servants….”

“Then we must seem like children to them,” said Yuri. “Like monks and nuns, computerizing all our records, our files, gathering old secrets into computer banks.”

“Who was the witch who fathered the Taltos? Who killed him?” demanded Ash suddenly. “You told me you’d tell me if I were to tell things to you. What more can I give you? I’ve been more than forthcoming. Who is this witch that can father a Taltos?”

“Michael Curry is his name,” said Yuri. “And they’ll probably try to kill him too.”

“No, that wouldn’t do for them, would it?” Ash said. “On the contrary, they will strive to strike the match again. The witch Rowan …”

“She can no longer bear,” said Yuri. “But there are others, a family of others, and there is one so powerful that even-”

Yuri’s head felt heavy. He raised his right hand and pressed it to his forehead, disappointed that his hand was so warm. Leaning forward made him feel sick. Slowly he eased back, trying not to pull or flick his shoulder, and then he closed his eyes. He reached into his pants pocket and pulled out his little wallet and opened it.

He slipped out of hiding the little school picture of Mona, very vividly colored; his darling with her smile, her even white teeth, her heap of coarse and beautiful red hair. Childwitch, beloved witch, but witch without question.

Yuri wiped his eyes again, and his lips. His hand was trembling so badly that Mona’s lovely face was out of focus.

He saw the long, thin fingers of Ash touch the edges of the photograph. The Taltos was standing over him, one long arm behind him, braced against the back of the sofa, while with the other hand he steadied the picture and studied it in silence.

“From the same line as the Mother?” said Ash softly.

Suddenly Yuri pulled in the photograph and crushed it flat to his chest. He pitched forward, sick again, the pain in his shoulder immediately paralyzing him.

Ash politely withdrew and went to the mantel. The fire had gone down somewhat. Ash stood with his hands on the mantel shelf. His back was very straight, his bearing almost military, his full dark hair curling against his collar, completely covering his neck. From this vantage point, Yuri could see no white in his hair, only the deep dark locks, brownish black.

“So they’ll try to get her,” said Ash, with his back turned still, raising his voice as needed. “Or they will try to get her or some other witch in this family.”

“Yes,” said Yuri. He was dazed, yet maddened. How could he have thought that he did not love her? How could she have been so distant from him so suddenly? “They’ll try to get her. Oh, my God, but we’ve given them an advantage,” he said, only just realizing it, and realizing it completely. “Good God, we have played into their hands. Computers! Records! It’s just what happened with the Order!”

He stood up. The shoulder was throbbing. He didn’t care. He was still holding the picture, tight, under the cover of his palm, and pressed to the shirt.

“How so, played into their hands?” asked Ash, turning, the firelight flashing up on his face so that his eyes looked almost as green as Mona’s and his tie looked like a deep stain of blood.

“The genetic testing!” Yuri said. “The whole family is going through the testing, so as never to match again a witch to a witch that might make the Taltos. Don’t you see? There are records being compiled, genetic, genealogical, medical. It will be in these records who is a powerful witch and who is not. Dear God, they will know whom to single out. They’ll know better than the foolish Taltos! They’ll have a weapon in this knowledge he never had. Oh, he tried to mate with so many of them. He killed them. Each died without giving him what he wanted-the female child. But …”

“May I see the picture of the young red-haired witch again?” Ash asked timidly.

“No,” said Yuri. “You may not.”

The blood was throbbing in his face. He felt a wetness on his shoulder. He had torn the wound. He had a fever.

“You may not,” he said again, staring at Ash.

Ash said nothing.

“Please don’t ask me,” Yuri said. “I need you, I need you very much to help me, but don’t ask me to see her face, not now.”

The two looked at each other. Then Ash nodded.

“Very well,” he said. “Of course, I won’t ask to see it. But to love a witch that strong is very dangerous. You know this, don’t you?”

Yuri didn’t answer. For one moment he knew everything-that Aaron was dead, that Mona might soon come to harm, that almost all that he had ever loved or cherished had been taken from him, almost all, that only a scant hope of happiness or satisfaction or joy remained to him, and that he was too weak and tired and hurt to think anymore, that he had to lie in the bed in the next room, which he had not even dared to glance at, the first bed he had seen in all this time since the bullet hit him and nearly killed him. He knew that never, never, should he have shown Mona’s picture to this being who stood looking at him with deceptive softness and seemingly sublime patience. He knew that he, Yuri, might suddenly drop where he stood.

“Come on, Yuri,” said Samuel to him with gruff gentleness, coming towards him with the usual swaggering walk. The thick, gnarled hand was reaching out for his. “I want you to go to bed now, Yuri. Sleep now. We’ll be here with some hot supper for you when you wake up.”

He let himself be led towards the door. Yet something stopped him, caused him to resist the little man, who was as strong as any full-sized man Yuri had ever known. Yuri found himself looking back at the tall one by the mantel.

Then he went into the bedroom and, to his own surprise, fell dazed upon the bed. The little man pulled off his shoes. “I’m sorry,” said Yuri.

“It’s no bother,” said the little man. “Shall I cover you?”

“No, it’s warm in here, and it’s safe.”

He heard the door close, but he didn’t open his eyes. He was already sliding away from here, away from everything, and in a spike of dream reality which caught him and shocked him awake, he saw Mona sitting on the side of her bed and telling him to come. The hair between her legs was red, but darker than the hair of her head.

He opened his eyes. For a moment he was only aware of a close darkness, a disturbing absence of light that ought to be there. Then gradually he realized Ash was standing beside him, and looking down at him. In instinctive fear and revulsion, Yuri lay still, not moving, eyes fixed forward on the wool of Ash’s long coat.

“I won’t take the picture while you sleep,” said Ash in a whisper. “Don’t worry. I came to tell you that I must go north tonight, and visit the glen. I’ll come back tomorrow and must find you here when I come.”

“I haven’t been very clever, have I?” asked Yuri. “Showing you her picture. I was a fool.”

He was still staring at the dark wool. Then, right before his face, he saw the white fingers of Ash’s right hand. Slowly he turned and looked up, and the nearness of the man’s large face horrified him, but he made no sound. He merely peered up into the eyes that were fixed on him with a glassy curiosity, and then looked at the voluptuous mouth.

“I think I’m going mad now,” said Yuri.

“No, you are not,” said Ash, “but you must begin to be clever from now on. Sleep. Don’t fear me. And remain here safe with Samuel until I return.”