Taltos Page 8

  As Michael, too, put his arms around her, Bea slumped as if she would faint, and let herself fall to the ground. Michael collected her and held her and she sank, crying, against his chest. Her hair fell in her eyes, and her hands were still reaching, trembling, like birds that couldn't light.

  The man in the ominous clothes was a policeman--Mona saw the gun and the shoulder holster--a Chinese American, with a tender and emotional face.

  "I'm so sorry," he said with a distinct New Orleans accent. Mona had never heard such an accent from such a Chinese face.

  "They killed him?" Mona asked in a whisper, looking from the policeman to Michael, who was slowly soothing Bea with kisses and a gentle hand that straightened her hair. In all her life Mona had never seen Bea cry like this, and for one moment two thoughts collided in her: Yuri must be dead already; and Aaron had been murdered, and this meant perhaps that they were all in danger. And this was terrible, unspeakably terrible above all for Bea.

  Rowan spoke calmly to the policeman, though her voice was hoarse and small in the confusion, in the clattering of emotion.

  "I want to see the body," said Rowan. "Can you take me to it? I'm a doctor. I have to see it. It will take me only a moment to dress."

  Was there time for Michael to be amazed, for Mona to be flabbergasted? Oh, but it made sense, didn't it? Horrible Mary Jane had said, "She's listening. She'll talk when she's ready."

  And thank God she had not sat still and silent through this moment! Thank God that she couldn't or didn't have to, and was with them now.

  Never mind how fragile she looked, and how hoarse and unnatural her voice sounded. Her eyes were clear as she looked at Mona, ignoring the policeman's solicitous answer that perhaps it was better she did not see the body, the accident having been what it was.

  "Bea needs Michael," said Rowan. She reached out and clasped Mona's wrist. Her hand was cool and firm. "I need you now. Will you go with me?"

  "Yes," said Mona. "Oh yes."

  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 cliche 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 memb
ers 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.