Taltos Read online

  Ah, his Rowan, coming into the room, and insisting upon something as she looked at the others, as she argued, as she made the men again take their seats. A white napkin had dropped to the floor. The murals blazed with perfect summer skies. If only he could have moved closer.

  But he could see her clearly and him too, and hear the noises of spoons against plates. Scent of meat, of humans, scent of ...?

  That had to be his error! But the scent was so sharp and old and tyrannical that it took hold and the moment slipped right out of his hands. Scent of the female!

  And just when he was telling himself again, It cannot be, when he was searching for the little red-haired witch, there came into the room the Taltos.

  He closed his eyes. He listened to his heart. He breathed her scent as it emanated through brick walls, out of seams and cracks around glass, seeping from God knows where, to stir the organ between his legs, to make him stand back, breathless, wanting to flee, and absolutely immovable.

  Female. Taltos. There. And her red hair all aflame beneath the chandelier and the arms out as she spoke, rapid, anxious. He could hear the bare high notes of her voice. And, oh, the look on her face, her newborn face, her arms so delicate in her sheer dress of Point d'Esprit and her sex, deep underneath, pulsing with the scent, a flower opening in darkness and alone, the scent penetrating to his brain.

  My God, and they have kept this from him! Rowan! Michael!

  She is there, and they have not told him, and would that he never knew. His friends, you witches!

  Coldly, shivering, maddened by the scent and drugged, he watched them through the glass. Humankind, not his kind, shutting him out, and the lovely princess standing there, and was she crying out, was she ranting, were those tears in her eyes? Oh, splendid, beautiful creature.

  He moved out from behind the shrubbery, not by will but by simple allowance. Behind the slim wooden post he stood, and now he could hear her plaintive cries.

  "It was on the doll, the same scent! You threw away the wrapping, but I smelled it on the doll. I smell it in this house!" Bitterly she wailed.

  Oh, newborn baby.

  And who was this august council that would not answer her plea? Michael gestured for calm. Rowan bowed her head. One of the other men had risen to his feet.

  "I'll break the doll if you don't tell me!" she screamed.

  "No, you won't do that," Rowan cried out, and now it was she who rushed to the girl. "You won't, you won't, Michael, get the Bru, stop her!"

  "Morrigan, Morrigan ..."

  And she, crying so softly and the scent gathering and moving on the air.

  And I loved you, thought Ash, and I thought for a little while I would be one of you. Anguish. He wept. Samuel had been so right. And there, behind these thin panes ... "Do I weep, do I go?" he whispered. "Do I smash the glass? Do I confront you with your own deceptive silence, that you did not tell me this! That you did not! That you did not!

  "Oh, we weep like children!"

  And he wept as she wept. Didn't they understand? She had picked up his scent from those gifts, dear God, what agony for her, poor newborn!

  She lifted her head. The men gathering around her could not make her sit down. What had caught her eye? What made her look to the window? She couldn't see him beyond the self-contained glare of the light.

  He stepped backwards into the grass. The scent, yes, catch the scent, my dear, my darling newborn woman, and closing his eyes, he staggered backwards.

  She had pressed herself to the very glass. Her hands spread out on the panes. She knew he was there! She'd caught it.

  What were prophecies, what were plans, what was reason, when for eternity he had seen her ilk only in his dreams, or old and withered and mindless as Tessa had been, when she was hot and young, and searching for him.

  He heard the glass break. He heard her cry, and watched in stunned, overwhelmed silence as she ran towards him.

  "Ashlar!" she cried in that thin high voice, and then her words came in the rush that only he could hear, singing of the circle, the memories, singing of him.

  Rowan had come to the edge of the porch. Michael was there.

  But that was gone, and with it all its obligations. Across the wet grass she came.

  She flew into his arms, her red hair wrapping round him. Bits and pieces of shining glass fell from her. He held her against him, her breasts, her warm beating breasts, his hand slipping up beneath her skirts to touch the warmth of her sex, the living fold, wet and heated for him, as she moaned and licked at his tears.

  "Ashlar, Ashlar!"

  "You know my name!" he whispered, kissing her roughly. How could he not tear loose her clothes here and now?

  She was no one that he had ever known or remembered. She was not Janet who had died in the flames. She did not need to be. She was herself, his kind, his pleading, begging love.

  And look how still they stood, watching him, his witches. Others had come to the porch, witches all! Look at them! Not lifting a finger to come between them, to part him from the precious female that had fled to his arms, Michael's face wondering, and Rowan's, what was it, what did he see in the light, was it resignation?

  He wanted to say, I am sorry. I must take her. You know this. I am sorry. I did not come to take her away. I did not come to judge and then steal. I did not come to discover and then withhold my love.

  She was eating him with her kisses, and her breasts, her tender full breasts. But who had come now, rushing out across the flags, was it the red-haired witch, Mona?

  "Morrigan!"

  "I am gone now, Mother, I am gone." She sang the words so fast, how could they understand? But it was enough for him. He lifted her, and just as he began to run, he saw Michael's hand raised in farewell, the sharp simple gesture which gives permission to go, and all good speed, and he saw his beautiful Rowan nod her head. The little witch Mona only screamed!

  He hurried with his beauty through the darkness, her long light limbs nothing to him as he ran, across the dark stretch of grass, along stone paths, through yet another dark and fragrant garden. Moist and thick as the ancient forests.

  "It's you, it's you. Oh, and the scent on the gifts, it drove me mad."

  On the top of the wall he placed her, vaulting it and gathering her up again in the dark, empty street. He could scarcely bear this. Catching her hair in a great handful, he tugged her head back, lips moving down her throat.

  "Ashlar, not here!" she cried, though she was soft and submissive in his arms. "In the glen, Ashlar, in the glen, in the circle at Donnelaith. It stands still, I know it, I see it."

  Yes, yes, he didn't know how, in the long hours of the transatlantic flight, bundled with her in the dark, he would endure. But he mustn't hurt her tender nipples, he mustn't break her fragile glowing skin.

  Clasping her hand, he ran, bringing her with great youthful strides alongside him.

  Yes, the glen.

  "My darling," he whispered. He took one glance back at the house, rising so darkly and solidly there, as if full of secrets, of witches, of magic. Where the Bru watches all. Where the book resides. "My bride," he said, crushing her to his chest. "My baby bride."

  Her feet rang out on the stones, and then he swept her up again, running faster than they could run together.

  Janet's voice came to him from the cave. Old poetry, mixed with fear and remorse, skulls gleaming in the dark.

  And memory is no longer the goad, no longer the thought, no longer the mind making order of all that ponderous weight of our lives, failures, blunders, moments of exquisite loss, humiliation--our long lives. No, memory was something as soft and natural as the dark trees rising over their heads, as the purple sky in its last valiant light, in the woodland purr of the evening all around them.

  Inside the car, he took her in his lap, tore open her dress, grabbed her hair, and rubbed it to his lips, his eyes. She hummed, she cried.

  "The glen," she whispered, her face reddened, eyes glistening.

  "Before
morning comes here, it will be morning there, and we will be in those stones," he said. "We will lie in that grass, and the sun will rise on us, inseparable."

  "I knew it, I knew ..." she whispered in his ear. His mouth closed on her nipple, sucking the sweet nectar of flesh alone, moaning as he burrowed against her.

  And the dark car sped out of the multishaded gloom, leaving behind the somber corner and its regal house, the great leafy branches holding darkness like ripe fruit beneath the violet sky, the car a projectile destined for the green heart of the world, carrying them inside it, the two, male and female, together.

  2:30 a.m. July 10, 1993

  A Ballantine Book

  Published by The Random House Publishing Group

  Copyright (c) 1994 by Anne O'Brien Rice

  Excerpt from Servant of the Bones copyright (c) 1996 by Anne O'Brien Rice All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.

  Ballantine and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

  www.ballantinebooks.com

  Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 95-96245

  eISBN: 978-0-30757592-0

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