Taltos (Lives of the Mayfair Witches 3)

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.