Taltos (Lives of the Mayfair Witches #3)(26)
Author: Anne Rice

“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.”