Taltos

by Anne Rice

  Gordon at once resumed his account, his shoulders hunched and his hands working now in his excitement.

  "I was overcome with enthusiasm when I read that St. Ashlar had been a giant of a being, standing perhaps seven feet tall, that St. Ashlar had come from a pagan race whom he himself had helped to exterminate--"

  "Get on with it," said Ash softly. "How did you connect this with the Mayfair witches? How did men come to die as the result?"

  "All right," said Gordon patiently, "but you will perhaps grant this dying man one request."

  "Perhaps not," said Ash. "But what is it?"

  "You will tell me whether or not these tales are actually known to you, whether you yourself have remembrances of these early times?"

  Ash made a gesture that Gordon should continue.

  "Ah, you are cruel, my friend," said Gordon.

  Ash was becoming deeply angry. It was plain to see. His full black hair and smooth, almost innocent mouth rendered his expression all the more menacing. He was like an angel gathering its anger. He did not respond to Gordon's words.

  "You brought home these tales to Tessa?" asked Rowan.

  "Yes," said Gordon, ripping his eyes off Ash finally and looking to her. A little false smile came over his mouth as he continued--as if to say, Now we will answer the question of the pretty lady in the first row.

  "I did bring the tale home to Tessa; over supper, as always, I told her of my reading. And the history of this very saint, she knew! Ashlar, one of her own people, and a great leader, a king among them, who had converted to Christianity, betraying his own kind. I was triumphant. Now I had this name to track through history.

  "And the following morning I was back at the archives and hard at work. And then, and then ... came my momentous discovery, that for which other scholars of the Talamasca would give their eyeteeth, if only they knew."

  He paused, glancing from one face to another, and even to Yuri finally, his smile full of pride.

  "This was a book, a codex of vellum, such as I had never seen in my long life of scholarship! And never dreamed that I would see 'St. Ashlar,' that was the name carved on the cover of the wood box which contained it. 'St. Ashlar.' That was the name of the saint that leapt from the dust and the shadows as I went along the shelves with my electric torch."

  Another pause.

  "And beneath that name," said Gordon, again looking from one to the other to enlarge the drama. "Beneath, in runic script, were the words, 'History of the Taltos of Britain!' and in Latin: 'Giants in the Earth!' As Tessa was to confirm for me that very night with a simple nod of her head, I had hit upon the crucial word itself.

  "Taltos. 'That is what we are,' she said.

  "At once I left the tower. I drove back to the Motherhouse. I went down into the cellar. Other records I had always examined within the house, in the libraries or wherever I chose. When has such scholarship ever attracted anyone's notice? But this I had to possess."

  He rose, resting his knuckles on the table. He looked at Ash, as if Ash would move to stop him. Ash's face was dark, and some imperceptible change had rendered it utterly cold.

  Gordon drew back, turned, and then went directly to a big carved cabinet against the wall, and took out of it a large rectangular box.

  Ash had watched him calmly, not anticipating an attempt at escape, or confident that he could catch Gordon if Gordon had run for the stairway.

  And now Ash stared at the box as Gordon set it down before them. It seemed something was building in Ash, something that might explode.

  Good God, the document is genuine, thought Yuri.

  "See," Gordon said, his fingers resting on the oiled wood as if on the sacred. "St. Ashlar," he said. And again he translated the rest.

  "And what do you think is in this box, all of you? What would you guess?"

  "Get on with it, please, Gordon," said Michael, throwing a pointed glance at Ash.

  "I shall!" Gordon declared in a whisper, and then, opening the box, he drew out a huge book with stiff leather covers, and laid it down in front of him, as he pushed the box aside.

  At once he opened the cover and revealed the title page on the vellum, beautifully illustrated in crimson and gold and royal blue. Tiny miniatures speckled the Latin text. He turned the page carefully. Yuri saw more gorgeous writing and more fine, tiny illustrations whose beauty could only be studied by someone looking through a glass.

  "Behold, for you have never in your life seen such a document. For it was written by the saint himself.

  "It is the history of the Taltos from their earliest beginnings; the history of a race annihilated; and his own confession that he himself--priest, miracle worker, saint if you will--is not human, but one of the lost giants. It is his plea, to Saint Columba himself, the great missionary to the Picts, abbot and founder of the Celtic monastery on Iona, to believe that the Taltos are not monsters, but beings with immortal souls, creatures made by God, who can share in Christ's grace--it is too magnificent!"

  Suddenly Ash rose to his feet, and snatched the book away from Gordon, tearing it loose from Gordon's very hands.

  Gordon stood frozen by his chair, Ash standing over him.

  The others rose slowly to their feet. When a man is this angry, one must respect his anger, or at least acknowledge it, thought Yuri. They stood quietly gazing up at him as he continued to glare at Gordon as if he would kill the man now.

  To see the mild face of Ash disfigured with rage was a terrible thing to behold. This is what angels look like, thought Yuri, when they come with their flaming swords.

  Gordon was slowly yielding from outrage to plain terror.

  When Ash finally began to speak, it was in a soft whisper, the voice of his former gentleness, yet loud enough for all of them to hear:

  "How dare you take this into your possession?" The voice rose in its anger. "You are a thief as well as a killer! You dare!"

  "And you would take it from me?" demanded Gordon with blazing eyes. He threw his anger in the face of Ash's anger. "You would take it from me as you will take my life? Who are you to take it? Do you know what I know of your own people?"

  "I wrote it!" declared Ashlar, his face now flushed with his rage. "It's mine, this book!" he whispered, as if he didn't dare to speak aloud. "I inscribed every word," he said. "I painted every picture. It was for Columba that I did this, yes! And it is mine!" He stepped back, clutching the book against his chest. He trembled and blinked his eyes for a moment and then spoke again in his soft voice: "And all your talk," he said, "of your research, of remembered lives, of ... chains of memory!"

  The silence quivered with his anger.

  Gordon shook his head. "You're an impostor," he said.

  No one spoke.

  Gordon remained firm, his face almost comic in its insolence. "Taltos, yes," he said, "St. Ashlar, never! Your age would be beyond calculation!"

  No one spoke. No one moved. Rowan's eyes were searching Ash's face. Michael watched all, it seemed, as Yuri did.

  Ash gave a deep sigh. He bowed his head slightly, still holding tight to the book. His fingers relaxed ever so slightly around the edges of it.

  "And what do you think," he asked sadly, "is the age of that pathetic creature who sits at her loom below?"

  "But it was of the remembered life that she spoke, and other remembered lives related to her in her--"

  "Oh, stop it, you miserable old fool!" Ash pleaded softly. His breath came haltingly, and then at last the fire started to drain from his face.

  "And this you kept from Aaron Lightner," he said. "This you kept from the greatest scholars of your Order, for you and your young friends to weave a filthy plot to steal the Taltos! You are no more than the peasants of the Highlands, the ignorant, brutish savages that lured the Taltos into the circle to kill him. It was the Sacred Hunt all over again."

  "No, never to kill!" cried Gordon. "Never to kill. To see the coupling! To bring Lasher and Tessa together on Glastonbury Tor!" He began to weep, choking, gasping
, his voice half strangled as he went on. "To see the race rise again on the sacred mountain where Christ himself stood to propagate the religion that changed the whole world! It was not to kill, never to kill, but to bring back to life! It's these witches who have killed, these here who destroyed the Taltos as if he were nothing but a freak of nature! Destroyed him, coldly and ruthlessly, and without a care for what he was, or might become! They did it, not I!"

  Ash shook his head. He clutched the book ever more tightly.

  "No, you did it," said Ash. "If only you had told your tale to Aaron Lightner, if only you had given him your precious knowledge!"

  "Aaron would never have cooperated!" Gordon cried. "I could never have made such a plan. We were too old, both of us. But those who had the youth, the courage, the vision--they sought to bring the Taltos safely together!"

  Again Ash sighed. He waited, measuring his breaths. Then again he looked at Gordon.

  "How did you learn of the Mayfair Taltos?" Ash demanded. "What was the final connection? I want to know. And answer me now or I will rip your head from your shoulders and place it in the lap of your beloved Tessa. Her stricken face will be the very last thing you see before the brain inside sputters and dies."

  "Aaron," said Gordon. "It was Aaron himself." He was trembling, perhaps on the verge of blacking out. He backed up, eyes darting from right to left. He stared at the cabinet from which he'd taken the book.

  "His reports from America," said Gordon, moving closer to the cabinet. "The Council was convened. The information was of critical importance. A monstrous child had been born to the Mayfair witch, Rowan. It had happened on Christmas Eve. A child that had grown within hours perhaps to the size of a man. Members throughout the world were given the description of this being. It was a Taltos, I knew it! And only I knew."

  "You evil man," whispered Michael. "You evil little man."

  "You call me that! You, who destroyed Lasher! Who killed the mystery as if he were a pedestrian criminal to be dispatched by you to hell in a barroom brawl?"

  "You and the others," said Rowan quickly. "You did this on your own."

  "I've told you we did." He took another step towards the cabinet. "Look, I won't tell you who the others were, I told you."

  "I mean the Elders weren't any part of it," said Rowan.

  "The excommunications," said Gordon, "were bogus. We created an intercept. I didn't do it. I don't even understand. But it was created, and we let through only those letters to and from the Elders that did not pertain to this case. We substituted our own exchanges for those between Aaron or Yuri and the Elders, and those from the Elders to them. It wasn't difficult--the Elders, with their penchant for secrecv and simplicity, had left themselves wide open for such a trick."

  "Thank you for telling us this," said Rowan gravely. "Perhaps Aaron suspected it."

  Yuri could scarcely bear the kindness with which she was speaking to the villain, giving him comfort, when he should have been strangled then and there.

  Then she said, "What else can we get out of him?" She looked at Ash. "I think we're finished with him."

  Gordon understood what was happening. She was giving Ash permission to kill him. Yuri watched as, slowly, Ash set down the precious book again and turned to face Gordon, his hands free now to carry out the sentence which he himself had imposed.

  "You know nothing," Gordon declared suddenly. "Tessa's words, her history, the tapes I made. Only I know where they are."

  Ash merely stared at him. His eyes had grown narrow, and his eyebrows came together now in a scowl.

  Gordon turned, looking to the left and the right.

  "Here!" he cried. "I have another important thing which I shall voluntarily show you."

  He dashed to the cabinet again, and when he spun around, he held a gun in both hands, pointing it at Ash, and then at Yuri, and then at Rowan and Michael.

  "You can die by this," said Gordon. "Witches, Taltos, all of you! One bullet from this through your heart, and you are as dead as any man!"

  "You can't shoot all of us," said Yuri, moving around the edge of the table.

  "Don't you dare, or I will shoot!" Gordon screamed.

  It was Ash who made the swift move to close the gap between himself and the man. But Gordon turned to face him again, and cocked the gun. Ash didn't stop, but the gun didn't go off, either.

  With a grimace, Gordon brought the gun close to his own chest, his shoulders suddenly hunched, the other hand opening and closing. "God in heaven!" he gasped. The gun fell to the floor, clattering on the bare boards.

  "You," he said, glaring at Rowan. "You, witch, Mayfair witch!" he cried. "I knew it would be you. I told them. I knew it--" Bent near double, he shut his eyes, and collapsed against the cabinet. It seemed he would fall forward, but then he slipped to the floor. With his right hand he pushed vainly at the floorboards, as if trying to lift himself. Then his body went entirely limp, and his eyelids slid down halfway over his eyes, giving them the dull look of the dead.

  He lay there, with only the most haphazard and tawdry air of finality.

  Rowan stood as before, without a single outward sign that she had caused it. But she had, Yuri knew, and he could see that Michael knew. He could see it in the way that Michael looked at her--without condemnation, but with a quiet awe. Then a sigh came out of Michael. He took his handkerchief out of his pocket and mopped his face with it.

  He turned his back on the dead man, shaking his head, and he moved away, into the shadows, near to the window.

  Rowan merely stood there, her arms folded now, her eyes fixed on Gordon's.

  Perhaps, thought Yuri, she sees something that we don't see. She senses something we can't sense.

  But it really didn't matter. The bastard was dead. And for the first time, Yuri could breathe. He could express a long sigh of relief, so different from the mournful whisper of sound that had just come from Michael.

  He is dead, Aaron. He is dead. And the Elders were not part of it. And they will find out, they will surely find out, who his helpers were, if they were those proud young novices.

  It seemed a foregone conclusion to Yuri that those young men--Marklin George and Tommy Monohan--were guilty. Indeed, the whole scheme seemed the work of the young, rash and ruthless and full of waste--and perhaps it had been truly beyond the old man's imagining.

  No one moved. No one spoke. They all stood there, paying some sort of dark homage to the dead body, perhaps. Yuri wanted to feel relief, but he felt none.

  Then Ash went to Rowan, very deliberately and formally, and touching her arms lightly with his long fingers, he bent to kiss her on both cheeks. She looked up, into his eyes, as if she'd been dreaming. Hers was the unhappiest expression Yuri had ever seen.

  Ash withdrew and then turned to Yuri. He waited, without speaking. They were all waiting. What was there to say? What must happen now?

  Yuri tried to plan, but it was quite impossible.

  "Will you go home now, to the Order?" Ash finally asked.

  "Yes," said Yuri with a quick nod. "I'll go home to the Order!" He whispered, "I've already alerted them to everything. I called them from the village."

  "I saw you," said Ash.

  "I spoke with Elvera and with Joan Cross. I have no doubt it was George and Monohan who helped him, but they'll find out."

  "And Tessa," said Ash with a little sigh. "Can you take Tessa under your roof?"

  "You would let me do it?" Yuri asked. "Of course we would take her. We would shelter her and care for her forever. But you would let this happen?"

  "What other place is safe for her?" said Ash, rather frankly sad now, and weary. "She does not have long to live. Her skin is as thin as the vellum pages of my book. She will probably die very soon. But how soon, I have no idea. I don't know how long any of us have to live. We died so often by violence. In the very early days, we believed that was the only way that people died. Natural death, we didn't know what it--"

  He broke off, scowling, dark eyebrows be
autifully curved beneath the scowl and along the ridge over the end of the large eyes.

  "But you take her," he resumed. "You'll be kind to her."

  "Ash," said Rowan softly. "You will give them incontrovertible evidence of the Taltos! Why would you do such a thing?"

  "That's the best thing that could happen," said Michael. His vehemence caught Yuri off guard. "Do it, do it for Aaron's sake," said Michael. "Take her there, to the Elders. You've done your best to blow the lid off the whole conspiracy. Give them the precious information!"

  "And if we're wrong," said Rowan, "if it was not a mere handful of men ..." She hesitated, looking down at the small, desolate dead body of Gordon. "Then what do they have?"

  "Nothing," said Ash softly. "A creature who will die soon, and become once again legend, no matter how many scientific tests are taken with her gentle forbearance, no matter how many photographs or tapes are made. Take her there, Yuri, I ask you. Make her known to the Council. Make her known to everyone. Destroy the secrecy so cruelly used by Gordon and his friends."

  "And Samuel?" asked Yuri. "Samuel saved my life. What will Samuel do when he discovers they have her in their very possession?"

  Ash pondered, eyebrows rising very gracefully, face softened with thought, and very much the way it had been when Yuri first saw it, the countenance of a large, loving man, perhaps more human than humans, he would never know.

  Such a lovely thought, suddenly, that he who lives forever becomes ever more compassionate. But it wasn't true. This being had taken life, and would have killed Gordon if Rowan hadn't somehow forced Gordon's heart to come to a fatal stop. This being might move heaven and earth to get to Mona, Mona the witch, who could make another Taltos.

  How in God's name was he to protect Mona?

  It was too confusing suddenly, too overwhelming. Of course he would take Tessa with him; he would call them now and beg them to come, and they would, and he would be home again, and he would talk to the Elders once more, and they would be his guardians and his friends. They would help him know what to do. They would take the decisions from his shoulders.

  "And I will protect Mona," said Rowan quietly.

  He was startled. The gifted witch had been reading his thoughts. How much could she read in all their hearts and souls? How much could the Taltos beguile her and fool her?

  "I am no enemy to Mona Mayfair," said Ash, apparently catching on easily. "You have been wrong on this from the beginning. I would not endanger the life of a child. I would force myself upon no woman. You have worries enough. Leave Mona Mayfair to these two witches who love her and will take care of her. Leave the family to them. That is what the Elders will tell you, no doubt, when you do reach them. Let the family heal the family. Let the Order cleanse itself."