Taltos Read online

  Not in Ash's nature.

  "Not in my nature to be alone, either," he thought. There was a leather portmanteau beside Samuel's glass. Leaving.

  Ash pushed very gently past those entering and exiting, giving a little nod and a point of the finger to Samuel to let the harried doorman know he was expected.

  The cold died away at once, and with the loud crash of voices and pots and pans, dishes and shuffling feet, there came the warm air like a fluid oozing around him. Inevitably heads turned, but the marvelous thing about any restaurant crowd in New York was that table partners were twice as animated as anywhere else, and always so seriously focused on each other. All meetings seemed crucial; courses devoured in a rush; faces evincing infatuation, if not with one's partner, then certainly with the evening's ever-quickening momentum.

  Surely they saw the tall man in the outrageous violet silk take the chair opposite the smallest man in the place, a chunky little fellow in heavy clothes, but they saw it out of the corner of the eye, or with a movement of the neck swift enough to injure the spinal cord, and they did not miss a beat of their own conversations. The table was right before the front glass, but then people on the streets were even more skilled at secret observation than the people in the warm safety zone of the restaurant.

  "Go ahead and say it," said Ash under his breath. "You are leaving, you are going back to England."

  "You knew I would, I don't want to be over here. I always think it's going to be wonderful and then I get tired, and I have, to go home. I have to go back to the glen, before those fools from the Talamasca start invading it."

  "They won't do that," Ash said. "I hoped you'd stay for a little while." He marveled at the control he managed to maintain over his own voice. "That we'd talk about things ..."

  "You cried when you said goodbye to your human friends, didn't you?"

  "Now, why do you ask me that?" said Ash. "You are determined that we part with cross words?"

  "Why did you trust them, the two witches? Here, the waiter's talking to you. Eat something."

  Ash pointed to something on the menu, the standard pasta he always ordered in such places, and waited for the man to disappear before resuming.

  "If you hadn't been drunk, Samuel, if you hadn't seen everything through a tiresome haze, you would know the answer to that question."

  "Mayfair witches. I know what they are. Yuri told me all about them. Yuri talked in a fever a lot of the time. Ash, don't be stupid again. Don't expect these people to love you."

  "Your words don't make sense," said Ash. "They never did. They're just a sort of noise I've grown used to hearing when I'm in your presence."

  The waiter set down the mineral water, the milk, the glasses.

  "You're out of sorts, Ash," said Samuel, gesturing for another glass of whiskey, and it was pure whiskey, Ash could tell by the smell. "And it's not my fault." Samuel slumped back in the chair. "Look, my friend, I'm only trying to warn you. Let me put it this way, if you prefer. Don't love those two."

  "You know, if you insist upon this lecture, I just may lose my temper."

  The little man laughed outright. It was a low, nimbly laugh, but the folds over his eyes even showed his sudden bemusement.

  "Now that might keep me in New York another hour or two," he said, "if I thought I was really going to see that."

  Ash didn't respond. It was too terribly important not to say anything he didn't mean, not now, not to Samuel, not to anyone. He had believed that all his long life, but periodically he was brutally reminded of it.

  After a moment, he said:

  "And who should I love?" It was said with only the softest note of reproach. "I'll be glad when you're gone. I mean ... I mean I'll be glad when this unpleasant conversation is over."

  "Ash, you should never have drawn so close to them, never told them all you did. And then the gypsy, letting him just go back to the Talamasca."

  "Yuri? And what did you want me to do? How could I stop Yuri from going back to the Talamasca?"

  "You could have lured him to New York, put him to work for you some way. He was a man with a broken life; but you sent him home to write volumes on what happened. Hell, he could have been your companion."

  "That was not right for him. He had to go home."

  "Of course it was right. And he was right for you--an outcast, a gypsy, the son of a whore."

  "Please don't make your speech as offensive and vulgar as you possibly can. You frighten me. Look, it was Yuri's choice. If he had not wanted to go back, he would have said so. His life was the Order. He had to go back, at least to heal all the wounds. And after that? He wouldn't have been happy here in my world. Dolls are pure magic to those who love them and understand them. To others they are less than toys. Yuri is a man of coarse spiritual distinctions, not subtle ones."

  "That sounds good," said Samuel, "but it's stupid." He watched the waiter set the fresh drink before him. "Your world is full of things that Yuri might have done. You could have turned him loose to build more parks, plant more trees, all these grandiose schemes of yours. What were you telling your witches, that you were going to build parks in the sky so that everyone could see what you see from your marble chambers? You could have kept that kid busy all his life, and you would have had his companionship--"

  "I wish you would stop. This didn't happen. It simply did not happen."

  "But what happened is that you want the friendship of those witches, a man and woman married to each other with a great clan around them, people who are a priori committed to a family way of living that is intensely human--"

  "What can I do to make you stop?"

  "Nothing. Drink the milk. I know you want it. You're ashamed to drink it in front of me, afraid I might say something like 'Ashlar, drink your milk!' "

  "Which you now have, even though I have not touched the milk, you realize."

  "Ahh, this is the point. You love those two, the witches. And it is incumbent upon those two--as I see it--to forget all this, this nightmare of Taltos, and the glen, and murdering little fools who infiltrated the Talamasca. It is essential to the sanity of that man and woman that they go home and build the life the Mayfair family expects them to build. And I hate it when you love those who will only turn their backs on you, and those two have to do it."

  Ash didn't answer.

  "They are surrounded by hundreds of people for whom they must make this part of their lives a lie," Samuel continued to expostulate. "They will want to forget you exist; they will not want the great realm of their day-to-day life lost in the glare of your presence."

  "I see."

  "I don't like it when you suffer."

  "Is that so?"

  "Yes! I like to open magazines and newspapers and read about your little corporate triumphs, and see your smiling face above flippant little lists of the world's ten most eccentric billionaires, or New York's most eligible bachelors. And now I know you will break your heart wondering if these witches are your true friends, if you can call them when your heart aches, if you can depend on them for the knowledge of yourself that every being requires--"

  "Stay, please, Samuel."

  This put a silence to the lecture. The little man sighed. He drank some of the fresh drink, about half, and licked his heavy crooked lower lip with an amazingly pink tongue.

  "Hell, Ash, I don't want to."

  "I came when you called me, Samuel."

  "You regret that now?"

  "I don't think in that way. Besides, how could I regret it?"

  "Forget it all, Ash. Seriously, forget it. Forget a Taltos came to the glen. Forget you know these witches. Forget you need anyone to love you for what you are. That's impossible. I'm afraid. I'm afraid of what you will do now. The pattern's all too familiar."

  "What pattern is that?" asked Ash quietly.

  "You'll destroy all this, the company, the corporation, the Toys Without Limit or Dolls for the Millions, whatever it's called. You'll sink into apathy. You'll just let it go. You'll
walk out and far away, and the things you've built and the things you've made will just slowly fall apart without you. You've done it before. And then you'll be lost, just the way I'm lost, and some cold winter evening, and why you always choose the dead of winter I don't know, you'll come to the glen again looking for me."

  "This is more important to me, Samuel," he said. "It's important for many reasons."

  "Parks, trees, gardens, children," sang the little man.

  Ash didn't reply.

  "Think about all those who depend on you, Ash," said Samuel, continuing the same sermon for the same congregation. "Think of all these people who make and sell and buy and love the things you manufacture. That can substitute for sanity, I think, having other warm beings of intellect and feeling dependent upon us. You think I'm right?"

  "It doesn't substitute for sanity, Samuel," said Ash. "It substitutes for happiness."

  "All right, that's fine then. But don't wait for your witches to come to you again, and for God's sake never seek them on their own turf. You'll see fear in their eyes if they ever see you standing in their garden."

  "You're so sure of all this."

  "Yes, I'm sure. Ash, you told them everything. Why did you do that? Perhaps if you had not, they wouldn't fear you."

  "You don't know what you're saying."

  "And Yuri and the Talamasca, how they will plague you now."

  "They will not."

  "But those witches, they are not your friends."

  "So you keep saying."

  "I know they are not. I know their curiosity and awe will soon change to fear. Ash, it's an old cliche, they're only human."

  Ash bowed his head and looked away, out the window at the blowing snow, at shoulders hunkered against the wind.

  "Ashlar, I know," Samuel said, "because I am an outcast. And you are an outcast. And look out there at the multitudes of humans passing on the street, and think how each one condemns so many others as outcast, as 'other,' as not human. We are monsters, my friend. That's what we'll always be. It's their day. That we're alive at all is enough to worry about." He downed the rest of the drink.

  "And so you go home to your friends in the glen."

  "I hate them, and you know it. But the glen we won't have for long. I go back for sentimental reasons. Oh, it's not just the Talamasca, and that sixteen genteel scholars will come with tape recorders, begging me to recite all I know over lunch at the Inn. It's all those archaeologists digging up St. Ashlar's Cathedral. The modern world has found the place. And why? Because of your damned witches."

  "You can't lay that on me or on them, and you know it."

  "Eventually we'll have to find some more remote place, some other curse or legend to protect us. But they're not my friends, don't think they are. They don't."

  Ash only nodded.

  Food had come, a large salad for the little man, the pasta for Ash. The wine was being poured in the glasses. It smelled like something gone utterly wrong.

  "I'm too drunk to eat," Samuel said.

  "I understand if you go," Ash said softly. "That is, if you're bound to go, then perhaps you should do it."

  They sat in silence for a moment. Then the little man lifted his fork and began to devour the salad, shoveling it into his mouth, as bits and pieces fell to the plate despite his most diligent efforts. Loudly he scraped up every last bit of olive, cheese, and lettuce on the plate, and then drank a big gulp of the mineral water.

  "Now I can drink some more," he said.

  Ash made a sound that would have been a laugh if he had not been so sad.

  Samuel slid off the chair and onto his feet. He picked up the leather portmanteau. He sauntered over to Ash, and crooked his arm around Ash's neck. Ash kissed his cheek quickly, faintly repelled by the leathery texture of the skin, but determined at all costs to hide it.

  "Will you come back soon?" Ash asked.

  "No. But we'll see each other," said Samuel. "Take care of my dog. His feelings are hurt very easily."

  "I'll remember that."

  "And pitch yourself into your work!"

  "Anything else?"

  "I love you."

  And with that Samuel pushed and swaggered his way through the press of those being seated and those rising to go, and all the backs and elbows clumped against him. He went out the front door and along the front window. The snow was already catching in his hair and on his bushy eyebrows, and making dark wet spots on his shoulders.

  He lifted his hand in farewell, and then he passed out of the frame, and the crowd became the crowd again.

  Ash lifted the glass of milk and slowly drank all of it. Then he put some bills beneath his plate, stared at the food as if telling it goodbye, and went out himself, walking into the wind on Seventh Avenue.

  When he reached his bedroom high above the streets, Remmick was waiting for him.

  "You're cold, sir, much too cold."

  "Am I?" Ash murmured. Patiently he let Remmick take away the silk blazer and the outrageous scarf. He put on the flannel smoking jacket of satin-lined wool, and taking the towel Remmick gave to him, he wiped the dampness from his hair and his face.

  "Sit down, sir, let me take off your wet shoes."

  "If you say so." The chair felt so soft, he could not imagine climbing out of it later on to go to bed. And all the rooms are empty. Rowan and Michael are gone. We will not be walking downtown tonight, talking eagerly together.

  "Your friends arrived safely in New Orleans, sir," Remmick said, peeling off the wet socks, and then quickly putting on fresh dry socks so deftly that his fingers barely grazed Ash's flesh. "The call came right after you left for dinner. The plane is on its way back. It should be landing in about twenty minutes."

  Ash nodded. The leather slippers were lined with fur. He did not know whether they were old or new. He couldn't remember. Suddenly all the little details seemed to have fled. His mind was horrifyingly empty and still; and he felt the loneliness and the stillness of the rooms completely.

  Remmick moved at the closet doors like a ghost.

  We hire those who are unobtrusive, Ash thought, and then they can't comfort us; what we tolerate cannot save us.

  "Where's the young Leslie, Remmick? Is she about?"

  "Yes, sir, with a million questions, it seems. But you look so very tired."

  "Send her in. I need to work. I need to have my mind on something."

  He walked down the corridor, and into the first of his offices, the private office, the one where papers were stacked here and there, and a file cabinet stood open, the one no one was allowed to clean, the one that was insufferably cluttered.

  Leslie appeared within seconds, face brimming with excitement, dedication, devotion, and inexhaustible energy. "Mr. Ash, there's the International Doll Expo next week, and a woman from Japan just called, said you definitely wanted to see her work, you told her so yourself last time you were in Tokyo, and there were about twenty different appointments missed while you were gone, I've got the entire list...."

  "Sit down, then, and we'll get to it."

  He took his position behind the desk, making a small note that the clock said 6:45 p.m., and that he would not look at it, not even steal a glance, until he was certain that the time would be past midnight.

  "Leslie, put all that aside. Here are some ideas. I want you to number them. The order is not important. What's important is that you give me the whole list every day, without fail, with notes on the progress we've made regarding each and every idea, and a large mark of 'no progress' on those I allow to remain inactive."

  "Yes, sir."

  "Singing dolls. Perfect first a quartet, four dolls that sing in harmony."

  "Oh, that's a wonderful idea, Mr. Ash."

  "Prototypes should reflect some aim at being cost-effective; however, that is not the most important point. The dolls must sound good and sing even after they are hurled to the floor."

  "Yes, sir ... 'hurled to the floor.' "

  "And a tower museum. I wa
nt a list of the top twenty-five available penthouses in midtown, purchase price, lease price, every pertinent detail. I want a museum in the sky so that people can go out and look at the view on a glass-enclosed gallery...."

  "And what will the museum hold, sir, dolls?"

  "Dolls on a certain theme. The exact same assignment is to be given to two thousand doll artists. Make your interpretation in three connected figures of the Family of Humankind. No, four figures. One can be a child. Yes, the description will be exact, I need to be reminded.... For now, get the best building."

  "Yes, sir, got it, yes," she said, engraving her pad with the fine-point pen.

  "And on the singing dolls, everyone should be advised that eventually there will be an entire choir. A child or a doll collector could conceivably over the years acquire the entire choir, or chorus, or whatever name is best, you know, you follow me?"

  "Yes, sir ..."

  "And I don't want to see any mechanical plans; this is electronic, computer chip, state of the art, and there should be ... there should be some way for the voice of one doll to work some responsive change in the voice of another. But those are details. Write it up...."

  "Materials, sir? Porcelain?"

  "No, not porcelain. Never. I don't want them to break. Remember, they should not break, ever."

  "Sorry, sir."

  "And I'll design the faces. I need pictures, pictures from all over, I want everyone's work. If there is an old woman in a village in the Pyrenees making dolls, I want to see pictures. And India, why do we have no dolls from India? Do you know how often I have asked this question? Why don't I get answers? Write this memo to the vice presidents, to the marketing people, post it! India. Who are the art-doll makers of India? I think I will go to India, yes, find a time for me to go. I'll find the people who are making dolls if no one else has the sense...."

  The snow had begun to fall heavily outside, very white near the glass.

  All the rest was once again blackness. Tiny random sounds came from the streets below, or was it from the pipes, or the snow falling on the roof above, or just the glass and steel of the building breathing as inevitably as wood breathes, the building, for all its dozens of stories, swaying ever so slightly in the wind, like a giant tree in the forest?